Monitoring her golden
Who was having stomach
Troubles and leaving
Sticky brown puddles
Drying in the sun
With shiny green
Bloated flys swarming
I walked through the
Backyard with him

On the side of her
Shed a blanket of
Aphid pockmarked
Bushes hugged the
Plastic siding

And a single
Spindly branch
Covered in thorns
Protruded from their
Wilted clutches
And presented
One pink flower
Layered with satin
Petals to the sun
Bobbing contently in
The late morning wind

Even though she is inside
On the couch
Here
She is also with me

My friend works at
An old folks home
Makes his living off the
Constant enterprise of  
Death and disease

"It's a dark place"
He says
A parliament light
Between his fingers

He tells me about
A twenty five year
Old who has
Muscular dystrophy
Named anthony

"You should see him clam
Up around this aid, Caitlin.
All he wants to do is talk
To her."

A man
A boy really
Two years younger
Than me whose body
Decided to eat itself
One day
Who still gets nervous
Around pretty nurses

"He'll be dead in five years."

He tells me about Joyce

"She collapsed in the
Airport on her way back
To England. Shes been in the
Home for seven years. Her
Family doesn't have enough
Money to bring her home.
She told me it's all about the dash."

The dash? I say
Tipping the green
Bottle up and draining
The last warm slug of
Beer into my mouth

"Yeah, the dash.
On your tombstone.
It doesn't matter what date
You were born or the date
You die. What matters is the
Dash in between them."

I leave later than I should
When music comes on
The car radio I turn it off
And drive with the windows
Down.

They'll have no carcass
Not when our collective trash
Is up for picking

The front of the place
Smells like buttered
Noodles if you served them
In a shoe
The carpet is brown
To hide stains
Half deflated balloons
Dance sadly under the
Air vent

"So sorry, food will be out
In just a minute!"
She runs back from
Behind the counter
Into the kitchen
The cooks and her
Arguing in mandarin

That's fine I say
I'm not in a rush

I sit on the leather couch
Across from a cloudy tank
Full of fat bright orange carp
They swim lazily in circles
Bumping into each other
And the glass, not understanding

Breathing their own ****
That tumbles in the air filter
Bubbles at the bottom of
The tank

I think about going to
Sit back at my desk
While locking eyes with
The fattest one of the bunch

There are worse ways to exist
At least my ****
Gets pumped into someone
Else's tank

Reading during lunch
On the screened in back porch
When I notice
Apart from the other moths
That are fluttering and
Kissing the bent, thick
Stems of the spider plants
That grow against the dirt
Stained panels of the porch

A little white moth
Smashing itself against
The inside of the wire mesh
Windows

My book open on my lap
I watched him beat his
Powdered body fruitlessly
Looking for a way to rejoin
His other moths amongst
The spider plant blossoms
Wilted white and
Putrefying purple

Still open
I rested the books sturdy
Spine on the smudged glass
Of the coffee table

It took me a few times
To cup him in my palms
Giving him a wide berth
In his fleshy cell his wings
Still beat furiously against
The worn lines in my hands

I didn't open the storm door
I poked my hands through
A hole the hounds had made
And cracked open the restraints
Of the little white moth

He sat unmoving on the edge
Of my fingers
Wings still
Antennae still
Before fluttering off
Into the syrupy hues
Of the August afternoon

I sat back down
Looked to the open face
Of my book and wiped
The residue of the
Little white moth onto
My dress pants

Like the feverish beating
Of its wings on my hands
The bleached brushstrokes
On my dress pants
From the little white moth
Have since disappeared

You and I
Temporary

This house we sit in
Temporary

The love we share
(As strong as it is)
Temporary

All the skyscrapers in the world
Temporary

The streets and the sidewalks
Temporary

Every law, speech, and right
Temporary

Every person you pass on the street
Temporary

The piles of bills and gold hidden away behind massive vault doors
Temporary

The pain of a particularly bad day
Temporary

Every mistake and every triumph
Temporary

Your inclinations, opinions, and habits
Temporary

The ghost and the shell
Temporary

The printed words of men long since dead
And long since correct
Temporary

Every thick, coppery, snaking trail of blood
Every minuscule globule of spittle
Every boiling, salty tear
Temporary

The hatred of every person in every place in the entire world
Combined into one stinking stream
(As strong as it is)
Temporary

The soil that has run through your hands
The sand through the hourglass before it is flipped again
The rain that falls on humid August days
The whistling of the wind through broken windows panes
The sneaking of weeds tendrils through cracks in asphalt
Temporary

All
Forever
Temporary

My teeth getting cleaned
I choose to hold in a ****
Becoming a man