what an abysmal life
me, beveling down its side,
you not existing,
me searching.

put your eyes on them
skin and whiteness
and sheen
lovely hair, they
don’t see the lack-
luster life we fear
gucci on sight
yachts, mazdas
shots at midnight
hyatt in the plaza
to dream on roofs
but we sleep blanketed
they speed, shoes thrown way out—
at least our thrills are felt—
not ersatz,
not lost and dreamt
or counterfeit.

my blind eyes didn’t follow—
moments pass by in the rear-view
margalo, the happy years
life’s just a pool of draining shallows.

I was never vivacious;
Pétillant girls giggled
So did I
I was dissimulating,
Pretending at points;
In school, secondary—
Yet, after having chased reveries, flat dreams, insipid ends, and
having ruled all aims vain—
To them, I think,
I was, still, positively,
vivacious.

Whenever it rains
I see her lying before me,
vulnerable atop a picnic table.

Love isn't always a titanic,
more often then not it's subtle
like hundreds of little life boats
bringing us all to safety.

I find those subtle hints
of her honest love
floating towards me
whenever I start to sink.

I wear that shirt she got me,
I come home to a made bed
and folded laundry,
I see her letters and notes
on my mirror,
her face pops up on my phone
and when I answer all I can say is
"I love you too."

Her hair is buckwheat, straight,
hanging with the ease of
an assisted suicide.
And the smear, red and from
ear to ear, shows what she cannot:
that beauty is fluid and that we've forgot.

Sun-freckled and speckled
with cheap, off-brand gloss --
she is the monologue of
an anxious man across
the girl in the catalog, who
wore the Fall before the fall.