We sailed counter-clockwise Through black water and pumpkin sprees, Dangling footnotes of bookend conversations The closest thing to clarity in speech-- But we understood the solar flares and the sunspots And when our bodies sank into dank swampy muck, There we were in cold moonlight Naked and shivering and sweet, the whole balance Of cosmic radiation flung skyward, like It was all right then, it was all right now, everything is Like in that movie we watched apart but Somehow also didn’t, like how the time I tripped On that drug you were on, my friends and I burnt our fingers Making stupid fortune cookies All so contrived, but the morning before the pumpkin sprees I found a fortune on the ground that didn’t even come from my cookie So, like it asked me to, I took a chance And discovered that it wasn’t just my chance to take, cuz There we were scrubbing our legs in bathroom sinks and showers Trying to clear the muck away from skin and hair but the dirt Was so persistent, and the persistence Was so telling… Regardless Of how many green globules of antibacterial soap We squirted onto our legs, the world just wasn’t going to get clean, I mean The world just lends itself to filth, and sometimes You have to set the soap down and cry, or walk outside To see the sunrise Over the distant hazy hills, The sunspots and solar flares All suddenly laughable Despite their previous profundity. And even if it wasn’t just my chance to take, Still, I’m glad I picked that fortune up off the street and Read it quietly to myself, standing there with countless People passing by.