Still hexed, unemployed, another daylong bout
between too much silence and too much noise,
a sweetness opens the hymnal: sing, rejoice.

And I'm an American male child, born in 1990.
Summon me a moment, Effexor one-fifty,
instant nostalgia, a natural reaction.

Polly Anna, hailing from Tulsa, has a key.
She's in my robe, dancing on the balcony.
And we're not drinking
as much as we used to be, yet talking
baby names by three.

And I can feel it, a future good memory
unfolding in real time. Her dark shape,
growing darker, shadows from bedroom
to bathroom and back again.

Oh, the profane things we whisper
to get ourselves out of character,
unguarded, empty-headed, free.

The notes of trained movement,
of calibrated ****** phrase, harmonize.
The walls, the lamp, the bedside table,
the mattress, the blankets—the room entire
converges.

My name takes on two more syllables.
Her name becomes soundless.
Hold time. Bend, baby. Boundless.