the coffee flowed through tales of three lovers,
all dead now, somehow  
he managed to squeeze in a live one, number four,
over apple pie with melted cheese  
she was still coming around, usually after her AA meetings
helping him fill his apartment with Lucky Strike haze  
(only woman he knew who smoked unfiltered ****)  
he did not know why she watched him drink  
maybe he was her 40 days in the desert,
tempting her with the libations
she loved more than her own flesh,  
(her son in Waukegan with his sober dad)    
maybe he was her test, he didn’t give a **** he said  
she was quiet in his bed
often, like a thief in the night,
she would be gone when he woke in the morning  
a book or two missing, ones he had read
and filled with notes, some with pages torn out
that lined his walls, even his crapper he said  
where he could stand and drain his lizard
read Ezra Pound and Elliot and ask himself  
why the **** did those guys use so many words?  
when he ate the last crumbs of his pie, he told me
he meant to ask me the same question,
but the answer would be too long,
that I asked questions that did not need answers
I tried to tell him
I felt the same way, but
he fired up another Lucky Strike,
and asked for the check
which I would pay
and I knew, he would hear nothing
I had to say