Every now and then,
I'll pop two quarters into Lucky
Lucky Me! for a plastic ring
and a cheap laugh
on my way out of Giant, juggling
cream cartons in both arms.

And I love
them beside me in the passenger
seat, sharing it like two children
that sit up straight just to marvel
in the maple branches washing
the windshield in green.

But then slouch back when law
firms and Wells Fargo flood
the forest floor, trapping
blue birds and black owls
in one-way glass cages,
so all they can do is look forward
back in on themselves slowly
splintering into subsidiaries.

Commuters and Armani suits
bounce their Starbucks cups
off each set of cell bars.
"Can you hear me now,"
2002 asks us, but no reply.

'Cause it's no good.
There's no use in communicating
with social butterflies
when their wings are folded
like the cardboard boxes
we're packing with paperbacks,
'cause we'd rather stack tabs
than physical photo albums.

The one on top with the burgundy
felt cover. Yeah, that one. Flip
three pages back to that picture
of us at prom in '96 with that faux
sapphire glistening on your hand
from the heat lamps overhead
and the disposable photo flash
we couldn't turn off.

So after we got to the go-kart place,
we adjusted our hats,
and recorded our thoughts,
and until someone shouted our monikers
(Tasters of Life and Cool Guys,)
we took turns at the cage
while the others recalled their most
Jersey-like memories.

Somebody died on the beach,
and they chose to shut down our requests
for more info.

We ate with the lifeguard
who shook when he spoke.

I used to think in numbers.
1: There’s one of me. Alone. Plus
4: my family. Still 1, but 5, or
4 plus 1; that’s me, alone.
I used to think in numbers.
36: That’s weeks of school;
That’s weeks of math class,
math class, calculator;
Father, Son, and Calculator.
Trinity: the holy three, the three, the
3 times 36: that’s 108.
I used to think in numbers.
Math class, algebra, room 108.
I hate, I hate, I love, I hate,
I hate the way they look at me.
They look at me like man at dog,
like planet hogs,
throw books at me like cannons cogged
at ninety-minute intervals at cinder walls
until I fault and cringe and fall, and fall
like London Bridge and crash, and fall like
Blown-out glass gone back to class. I pass the
tests and cash regrets like rent checks
bounced across the bridge that they knocked down.
Because I used to think in numbers, yeah,
but now?

        Well, sure. Abrasions hurt.
And yeah, we all want friends.
But at least equations work
and keep their balance on both ends.
So I will rock this scatter-plot of
social contract to its peak until
my hands are red meat.
I am no dead beat;
I hold the world record for blood lost
to a summer camp spread sheet.

But then,
but then somewhere along that number line,
a 6 stared down its stage fright when just
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 days before the show,
I met a girl who barred my better judgment
like a cage fight,
and thank God she did,
because for once, I put away the calculator,
and I listened to her voice,
and it sounded like…
well, it sounded like it sounded.
And for once, I sat and wrote about the things
that can’t be counted.
I surrendered to the cage fight,
and I fell into a deep hole.
And to be honest,

I don’t miss spreadsheet summers,
‘cause it’s easier to keep cool.
I used to think in numbers,
yeah,
but now I think in people.

The city spikes that peer out over
rock-spires in the distance taste like
coffee grounds and finger paint.
They're bitter, but they matter.

Maybe someone north of Washington will
read our S.O.S. and send an airplane full of
urban-types to gentrify our graves.

And maybe Jesus saves.

Or maybe Jesus raves with coked-up
Gandhi up in Jersey, when the
winter turns to mush.

I live in a cat.

There are people who
buy their kids hot tubs
and buy their dads
caskets in shapes that
get buried like reruns
of Cheers among thousands
of channels that sputter
through static to
emulate social
experience.

And I pour my experience
into a bowl labeled "milk."

I live in a cat.

She always thinks I'm two steps away from the door
But I'm not.
I'm secure with two feet on floorboards,
Scoreboards painted with permanent scores we forgot.
Permanent residence, precedents set by our parents,
Hesitant pecks on the terrace.
We're all just specks on a Ferris wheel,
Careless, real, with empty eyes, ever open.
Forget the divers;
Empathize with the ocean.
Plagiarize with emotion.
The boy who tells you to stop is more lost than you are,
More Boston, and too far from devotion to breathe.
You don’t need him.

Take my advice,
Like a traveling salesman in a baffling city.
The path isn't pretty,
But the destination is beautiful.

He spread himself remedial,
confused by words of power,
told to hate, and
told to bounce back,
bruised and bare against
Saint Martin's ugly
stained-glass
face-crack.

This was love;
there were lovers.

But instead of dying
patiently and piously,
like father's dad before,
he stuck his needle
of a finger
through the gospel of a bullet,
and forgot to
lock the door.