you laughed at me
the first time you saw
the bucket on a string
hanging from my neck
you asked me its function
I said it was for
when you break my heart
you said
I don't understand
simple I said
it's to catch the falling pieces

It's the same every time
Waking up in a panic
The hangover's dull
Gradual throbbing
The amplification of existence's malaise
Reducing my feet
To a slow shuffle

My girlfriend has been calling it the same way
For six years
"You'll get up and check your wallet and make sure you have your keys"
And I do
She's beautiful because she's right
She's also gorgeous
But continually right

I get up and slip my fingers into the
Many compartments of my wallet
Making sure I feel the greasy
Cold plastic of the credit cards

The three IDs
One to drive a car
One to carry a gun
One to count as a person

And the flood of relief I feel
When I finger these plastic cards
Is alarming
How my mind jumps from jovial
Drunken thoughts
To hard
Plastic ones
In the midst of sleep
At ungodly hours of the morning

My identity personified
In polyurethane rectangles

I get back into bed
And again
After confirming that all
The clasps that keep the mask
Snug to my face
Are still there

I embrace her warmth
Under the thin comforter
She drapes her leg across me
While I kiss her forehead
"You smell like liquor"
Before browning out again

A man waiting on someone to die
drinks another cup, sighs
and looks at his watch, the face
everyone rememembers
for its twitch and drooping eye,
always running, always losing
a second, an hour, sometimes a day,
a year on the wrist of the dead.

I am thinking of the dead
who are still with us
on their way in the rain
to meet lovers or brothers
and my sadness waves back
like grain in the fields
of lost summers and summers
before that, fireflies in the dark
still young and beautiful
like starry nights, but for them
there is no moon, and for us
the same news we do not receive.

You walk across the room
in your black *******,
a cigarette in your hand
and turn off the fan
in the open window,
like an undertaker waiting
by the door for the headlights
in the driveway debating
another swig from his flask,
like a ***** blowing smoke
in the dark flicking ash.

I'm not quite sure
when the dark thought
first came to me;

it crept up softly
and quietly, like a black cat
in the garden of night;

like a light through a crack
in a door opening slowly
and too soon; or perhaps

a drowning man in the deep
waving back at the moon;
too far over his head.

The table was set.
The morning was fine.
The world lay reflected
in two glasses of wine.

An empty plate
reflected sunshine,
The morning compressed
in two glasses of wine.

What did she see
in undulations of wine?
Were the shapes a portent?
Was there a design?

Were the glasses a mirror
or shadowy sign?
Perhaps they were more
than just glasses of wine.

She and a friend
sat down to dine.
Their reflections drank deeply
from two glasses of wine.