pretty face bright glowing-- colorado freckles frozen
artificial sun, perma-smile.
lake michigan eyes.

        his white teeth and rosy cheeks
        a little taller, hands on her waist


in front of a church. on his bed. on her bed. on the dock. holding half-empty green bottles.
                                                    ever balanced
                                                             never crying




except in the hallway when everyone else is sleeping.

                       i don't want to be ******* lied to, she said

and he breathed out heavy, shook his head
it wasn't a photograph night.

do you remember walter?
do you remember, walter?

boats and boats and boats dotting your ivy shoreline
he stood there like a statue like a king
remember?

do you remember, walter, how we said we'd fight the world so we'd be free?

the white balance on your entire world was turned up.
the volume on your entire world was turned up.
the contrast on your entire world was turned up.

do you remember walter?
i remember, walter.

*i bet you're fat and married and you're always home in bed by half past eight

greece, even, in the nostalgia decades sometimes wore american clothes
but she spoke no english, was starkly unilingual
save for the french "sillage". she was the reason they teach you safe ***
and abstinence: the reason they couldn't trust you
she dressed more american than everybody else; she was a beautiful cockeyed anachronism

your jimmy stewart baby blues on her, brandy-sanctioned
better than the everyman. and a hallucination of your stand-in therapist
asking you "why should there be guilt if there is pleasure?"
and you replying horselike/illogical "it is the unconscious fantasy that i can be torn apart"

insipid, her blue eyes her blue dresses. the only-ness of her. her laugh like oleander.
she was Strong and Independent and she Didn't Need Me, but she had me anyway, for a minute.
i am cross-legged on the ugly wool blanket we made love under first. the first of many but empty.
i am cross-legged and my fingers restless, invisible piano keys trilling to the wee hours. many but empty.
the skin of my index finger bitten raw, the skin of my lower lip bitten raw.
the pretension of her jabs at pretension. her manufactured offbeat passion. her cat, her moleskin notebook.
ordinary, but only. insipid but aquamarine and clear as bells. she Didn't Need Me.
the first of many. and empty.

grand(iose) gestures but constant assurance
Our Ceiling Is Low. Our Days Are Numbered,
let’s not do this anymore.
is that what we decided
let’s not do this anymore?
I’m drunk you’re drunk
Okay

grand(iose) gestures and lights out
and darkness fumbling and
I Don’t Know What I’m Doing
we’ll figure it out
and how low is our ceiling, did you say?
what number are we at now
three seven nine let’s say ten
let’s not do this anymore
just one more minute
Okay

grand(iose) gestures and breathing and
quiet and finally
and sleep-sweat and the wee hours
waning
let’s not do this anymore.
okay
Okay

a fine line is drawn daily between the by-yourself and the alone, and between every little heartbeat of together, and between not old enough and not young enough, but sometimes you land right on that line and you sing about it in a singing voice that sounds different from your talking voice and all the voices blend together across the country and it sounds like a tribute to tonight, but “tonight” has broadened in the scope of your wonderful gymnastic balance and it’s every night that you can see stretched out in front of you, it’s every time the sun goes down and sometimes you’re all the heartbeats of together and it tastes like dark coffee or light beer and instead of singing about it you shout about it, even if there’s thunder in the clouds and the sun is waiting till past tomorrow to come back, it’s there somewhere just like how the other voices are there somewhere even when you’re on the left side of the line, and right now, tonight, is the same thing as all the nights and it’s the only thing that fills your head as you fall asleep right on the line between the half-light and the morning. and it’s a fine line too, that one.

your young smile, not metallic, caught me off-guard and quickly. it belied your voice, which was apt to project across the verdure, and was so much stronger than mine. we caught the end of summer and wisps of each other’s colds, but only from across the table. minty breath in words, never louder, the crook of my arm with a scent like I think yours has. we slid downhill, momentum loosely attached to our shoulders and flying out behind us. and like a careful demonstration of the unreliable nature of time and structure, we stopped hard at the bottom. and we waited. and then when the sun set, we disappeared. or rather, you did: you and your young smile. your voice gone from the verdure and no mint in the air, my throat clear and my hands empty; never loud and never closer—caught off-guard and quickly.