Seventy-nine days ago I walked home in early
September wearing a smell
of you.


       You said once, while massaging my back,
                   tense and fickle, but folding
             under your hands;
      “We're all off ***. It's a matter of increments.”

Today, moving back and forth in this building
It's rough-cut stone walls a consolation,    

I think, borderline obsessively,

You don't know what to do
with a woman like me,
do you?

The way you held
your cigarette,

The way you saw sunrise coming
from the bottom of a whiskey glass;

Only empty bottles,
fallen leaves noticed you;
hint of Winter to
cordial Autumn sun.

I roll over and pounce,
thinking of the beeswax deodorant
you bought when I said it would
smell good on you---

Bees! You've got BEES in your armpits!

And even though you're not ticklish there
you laughed.

Your mischief beard hangs
like bristle fingers from your chin
and touches my neck in a way
that keeps me between thoughts
and closed eyes.

I ask myself about Paulie who walked along
Brereton St., up and down the double yellow line,
said it was the only way he traveled,
said he was on the edge of the Earth,

I ask why my Step-Sister had to
write letters with no recipient to Paulie
of made up personal histories,
he left and never came back.

I ask about Carlene at the opposite platform
who said not 'Love' but 'a Love'
before she vanished.

I ask why I can never, ever, for two states now,
hold on to my left glove for more than a week,
I ask where to find the perfect cup of terrible coffee
to warm my left hand,

I ask about the Red Theater,
about that game we play called
'give it a name'
and I wonder if I'll ever be able to name anything,

I ask until atmospheric pressure is
oppressive with demands,
and it starts to rain.

All my questions hung,
a strand of prayer flags,
in the night blurred by wet pavement.

Downtown is toned by streetlights on Saginaw St.,
tracing her cobbled backbone—

on the corner a pool of light is a lullaby,
but clearer to see brick by brick,
layers of calloused palms,
callous shadows cross-hatching;
blue-collar, white-collar, police-collared,
all with matching steel jewelry—

We place the blame of an abandoned city
like hands wrapped around each other’s throats,

I hold my breath.

Buildings straighten themselves to look up,
our *****-mouthed, thieving, empty-pocket,
sole-less shoe, unapologetic town looks up,
both feet on pavement residued with used to be,
timeless like a good pair of jeans,
we all look up.

We whisper the secrets of a town unmoved
when hitting rock bottom.

We whisper to one-another an unwavering gaze,
a fight, a consolation, and stroll with heavy feet
under the sky of flickering city stars
with corporate automotive names,

We whisper all or nothing
     To dark windows in tall buildings,
     close our eyes for sleep;
     the sun comes up tomorrow.

It’s about boot heels for metronomes tonight,
the out of tune guitar grinning on the upstroke
is our Harvest, is our reveling
in daybreak frost never coming—

can be
warded off
by rosy cheeks
a two-step
a whisky breakdown—

Not yet, not yet

Drinking off cold to keep a rhythm
in step with Michigan months
shifting to auburn tones
like old-fashioned photographs.

Until ***** hounds trickle into blankets,
incubate into hangovers
thrown on living room couches,
floors, acres,

The cuddled up crop
of our Harvest Gathering.

I'll see you around, but
                                    not again on this empty floor,

the two of us in blankets, slept on our clothes,
woodgrain just out of reach.

Waiting at the station,
the 5 a.m. trolley home,
hands wrapped around my fare,

There's some memory of a dingy lastnight bar
where we chain-smoked through
the muted stop-motion of late-night,
whiskey breath and fingertips,
tracing the side of a face, the ends of nerves,

lost

in the traffic river crowd footfall,
at some patio latenight coffeehouse,
we were cinematic, mysterious under
the mercury lights that lit the sidewalk, that staged us

full, small, like hands wrapped around a cup with our name on it.

I am lost to the inside joke
of the empty street in my city
and laugh about nothing, really
as I flick my cigarette to go
inside—

I am lost just inside the door
where I trip on a
slack jawed chair
spending too much time
in front of the T.V.

I am lost in the dark
looking for a light switch
with no luck
so I try to think about
not being lost
with as much luck
as the light switch.

A lost cause at the
bar earlier, crooked darts,
sideways glances and
upturned chairs.

On the way home,
thinking about those
upturned chairs
and how unfair it was
to be cruel to something
unassuming,

I was lost in track marks
on my face when I thought about
how my mother would feel
about all of this nonsense.

I cried like I did when
I saw my mother cry
for the first time—
like she’d just come
from the womb
and it stole my innocence,

So I sit to pry open my chest
and see gears turning,
realize
I'm still looking for the
light switch,
realize,
we’re all dying of the same thing;

click—
Time—

Not the digital glowing red that
shrieks at me to get up,
not the one that
punches me in the gut
when I watch it at work
one thankless,
minimum wage minute
at a time, but

A pocket watch,
a family heirloom,
sacred, unapologetic,
searching, etched with our
Human monogram
and shined to near-perfect
Reflection.

I am lost in its face as it winds
around the ticks in mine.

I am lost in place
I am lost in motion,
I am lost in the Abyss
staring back.

I am lost, but
I still have
Time.

You a blanket and I—
naked boughs,
leafless sounds
of exposed limbs.