Hungover in bed
Sharing last night's
General  Tso's
With one ***** fork

My friend works at
An old folks home
Makes his living off the
Constant enterprise of  
Death and disease

"It's a dark place"
He says
A parliament light
Between his fingers

He tells me about
A twenty five year
Old who has
Muscular dystrophy
Named anthony

"You should see him clam
Up around this aid, Caitlin.
All he wants to do is talk
To her."

A man
A boy really
Two years younger
Than me whose body
Decided to eat itself
One day
Who still gets nervous
Around pretty nurses

"He'll be dead in five years."

He tells me about Joyce

"She collapsed in the
Airport on her way back
To England. Shes been in the
Home for seven years. Her
Family doesn't have enough
Money to bring her home.
She told me it's all about the dash."

The dash? I say
Tipping the green
Bottle up and draining
The last warm slug of
Beer into my mouth

"Yeah, the dash.
On your tombstone.
It doesn't matter what date
You were born or the date
You die. What matters is the
Dash in between them."

I leave later than I should
When music comes on
The car radio I turn it off
And drive with the windows
Down.

Under harsh street lights
And a rusted skeletal overpass
We walked in the syrupy
Silence of a Sunnyside Saturday
Night

A man asked me in accented
English
"Want that burrito spicy?"
"Yes"
His eyebrows go up
"Spicy?"
"Yes, ******* spicy!"

He smiles to himself
Reaches back into the food truck
And pours sauces and
Liquids of varying color
And viscosity into the
Tortilla

Wraps it up for me
Gives me my change
And waves me off with a smile

When we get back to the apartment
She is mad
Because I choose to make love to the
Burrito instead of her
I can't help it
Drunk eating is one of the
Forbidden joys of life

She slams the door and
Shuffles around yelling
By the time I'm done the burrito
She is telling me to sleep on the couch
Which is fine because I can't
Feel my mouth anyway
The burrito is so **** spicy

I tell her this and that her
Kisses would be wasted
If she wants to waste her time
With me, I want to feel it

We sleep together for
The night

You frighten me, in the way that a small bird or beautiful flower would frighten me.
The way a soft rabbit might rub against my ankle and and doze in my lap.
You are the clouds beneath my weary airplane, flung out across the atmosphere.
And you are the prickle of a heavy wool blanket in the thin chill of the night.
You are the the warm, green earth of the mountains, holding up the lightness of the blue sky.
The breeze kisses at the hem and collar of my shirt, and I hear you in it.
I lose you in my arms and find you, a fleeting creature in the forest.

I have
done all the floors
removed weeks of built up nasty
washed the cabinets down
removed all the bacon drippings from
cleaned and refilled all the tito boxes
so they have fresh litter to soil again
disinfected the toilet
washed all the hair off the soap
down the bathtub drain
polished the keyboard and the monitor
knocked ten years it seems of cobwebs off
every wall
got all the dishes soaking then
I ****** up  and drank a beer
so I won't
get done today
who really cares

How those words,
do ring true.

You would have to be pretty hollow,
for them to echo this long.

echo they do
echo they do

Deep down inside me
There's a yearning undefined
A role not yet served