The scent of your breath across
the horizon of my sternum

& the pull & clench beneath,
is tectonic; white birds
rise & fly, die
& descend.

Our lives are pregnant with insignificance.  
Things like--pecker gnats and Chihuahuas,

fake bronze menorahs,  white t-shirts,
and plastic daffodils.  Good Mental

health demands we balance life’s  trivial
with significant concerns, such as--cost-free

drugs to feel less bad, dealing with suicidal
people who find homicide intriguing, predicting

a python’s hunger pangs and the why, of
Saturn’s four rings;  the wise know the difference.

Awakens and
rises from his recliner.

Peels off diaper, ******
a bronze-orange  stream.

Drinks Sanka with cream,
eats two Little Debbie cakes.

Views MSNBC from 7 a.m.-noon,
consumes a can of tuna and glass of milk.

Sleeps  from 12:30-4: 00 p.m., television drones,
supper—a bowl of oatmeal and an onion sandwich.

Tapes on a new diaper, watches MSNBC at 4:30 p.m.,
falls asleep, he is 87 years and four months old, lives alone.

Things I once found beautiful
like not knowing when I saw you
on that rooftop
that I would love you
When we’d walk down Riverside
in all seasons
You telling me about
Boston and Outer Space

Sleeping on airplanes
Talking about
books and my dead friends
with whiskey and champagne

Are now painful reminders
being replaced with a blindness
A ****** tongue on a outlet
lighting a fire in a fountain.