Eager, *****, I washed my hands of you
in Rippling Creek on the 1st of January --
the beginning of the beginning.

As you turned to driftwood,
the friends and cross-eyed strangers
asked what was I thinking when I let go of you.

My mouth stitched by bongwater haze
all I could do -- watch your notched body soak.

Now on the 18th of September,
sitting in Fox Hollow, USA,
the shiniest of suburbs --
the sober of the sober--
In honest,
I say I'd rather have you alive and hating me
than dead and loving me.

If I lied in the grey dawn,
it was out of love.
If I lied in the grey dawn,
I was out of truth.

I'm alone
fending off vultures prying in with fake Facebook profiles,
taking threats from fathers who long ago went blind,
and this much I promise to you and Fox Hollow, USA:

I will quarantine the past.