And the steam is gone,
Clean now — everything.
But the tub.
Dirt days and dirt of the day
Ring around the tub,
Stays, a conjunction,
And, but, Baby is gone with the water.

We notice the dirt, the after bath aftermath,
Or I notice the dirt, because it is just me,
And the steam is gone.
Draining is slow:
A clog of pocket watches;
Lovers’ tresses;
First communion necklaces;
And flecks of sparrows’ wings.

The sparrows know better,
Bathing in the sand, brake dust,
The gutter grit.
The irons,
Dirt-day rings around my ankles, a conjunction.
Too fettered to flap like the sparrow,
To shake-shiver filthy clean.

after anti-lamentation by dorianne laux

Regret nothing. Not the true-crime shows that kept you up in morbid curiosity,
Anticipation and cynicism you couldn’t help but chase like Pandora’s box,
A price you paid with the death of childhood ignorance.
Not the hours you spent trying to delude yourself into forgetting,
Trying to bring the fantasy worlds in your fictions to life as a distraction,
Only for them to be tainted by the blood of your supposed savior,
Not the nights you woke up in the purgatory of consciousness held down by restraints,
Inescapable regardless of how much you tried to urge your muscle nerves to just move;
You broke the rules - your mind your prison,
something you could sense but would never truly understand.
You were born to live an unfulfilled life,
Half of you chasing comfort in the warmth of the radiating body in the sky,
Only for the other to seek its death - to watch a being of vast power, provider of light,
devolve into infinite darkness - emptiness warping space and time, void of destruction.
You’ve been here before, sat in front of fate dealing her cards,
Only for her to reveal the fool, just like she had the last time, and the time before that.
Regret none of it, not one of the countless sleepless nights you’ve endured,
Not one of the days you walked through the world with your vision spinning,
Permanently blinded by the haze that stood between you and affirmation.
You’ve been blessed with a beautiful gift, so relax.
Don’t bother thinking about escaping the fog,
The way that it consumes your mind with unanswerable questions,
An uncontrollable desire to chase against your rationale.
I mean, you asked for it, didn’t you?

Driving down the freeway
underneath the dark night sky.

Thinking about it all.
Tears falling from my eye.

Starring out the window
at the reflection in the mirror.

Remembering the times
when it all seemed so much
clearer.

Canada is afire and I’m confused, shouldn’t the snow put that out?

The Boston sky is an interesting shade of mustard yellow,
and there’s a pale orange haze where the sun should be.

Lisa, drowsily asleep-walked into the kitchen for her morning coffee.
“So this is Mars,” I observed, “Elon Musk will be so jealous.”
“Good,” Lisa said, “I was afraid it was nuclear winter.”
“There’ll be no breathing today.” I updogged.

We could almost hear the slow, delicate pitter-patter fall of micro-ash.

“There’s aaaa bright golden haze over Boston..” Lisa began to sing softly.
Lisa knows every Broadway score and can easily interpolate a song into every conversation.

Here, the wind whips
The desert sand
Into a furious haze
That blinds all in
It's vicinity

Here, my neighbor is
Dragged out and ******
And my other neighbor
Is drugged out, ******
Different burden, different labor

I pray,
On my knees
Toward the east.
I pray for change
I beg and plead,
Please