to me. He listens to them
spill their problems. Falls asleep
with pills he stores in his bedroom
drawer. Flirts with the ladies

in Rome. A husband and
a father. Has two homes, one up
north and one down south.  Drones
over dinner.  He's grown thinner

with age. But easy to engage. He likes
*** loud, but his woman soft as a fleece
bathrobe. Travels the globe. He's a
cartoon character wearing baseball

caps, flapping his gums in-between
afternoon naps. I read his lines,
and he mine. And that is that. One thing
I'll say - we never fall flat.

to me? The thick cherry
gloss is brushed on her cracked
lips. Bent over the table she slips
on the dangling conversation

wearing a red pencil smile drawn
on from this morning. She takes
a heavy breath from her burning
cigarette. We look like two

silhouettes against the
paisley prints covering the walls
behind the smoke screen. I nod
as if listening, while sipping

***** and lime, and eying
my cell for the time. And my head
is on the ceiling that's peeling
like layers of an onion, dangling

like the conversation, but not breaking
off. She streaks the glass, leaving an
imprint with her mouth. I hail the waiter
for the check, so I can check out.

the mobile, the one with the
elephants riding on wheels. Box
the toy clown, that smiles even
turned upside down, the little jumper

you tied to the door and the
swing, the red yo-yo on a string. All the
Dr. Seuss books that rhyme every
line. The yellow blanket with holes,  

the size 1 shoes with leather
soles. Thomas the tank videos,
that matched the painted wooden trains
with the connected track, that now

has several cracks. Put away your sing-
song voice and patty-cake hands,
the nursing bra and stuffed lambs. You
can't keep him small. He's over six feet tall!

in a quilted cornflower blanket
and set it on fire. I'll puncture
a hole in the thick of it, till it
flattens like a tire. I'll package

it and ship it off to sunny
Mexico, taking with it all the ice
and the heavy snow. I'll rip pages
off the calendar till May,  

taking November through April
minus two days. Leaving Thanksgiving
and Christmas there to stay. Or else
I'll hibernate like a bear and sleep

the months away, rolled up like
cigarettes in the mountains of Tibet
till the frosty air makes my breath dance
pirouettes on the stratosphere.

on her apple cheeks
between her egg white peaks
and the cherry rose
she calls her nose.

Planting kisses
in her wheat spaghetti hair
scented like ocean
air.

Planting kisses
on the crook of her nape
tasting like strawberry
crepes.

Planting kisses
down her spine till
she tingles, on her toes
and on her wrinkles.

Planting kisses
on her wispy arms,
that spread like wings
and her open palms.

Planting kisses
on her bellybutton, and
fingertips. So many
places to kiss, not only lips.

the two of us
in fields of green. I haven't
seen him in years, since
that day we paraded around

the chairs. The cherry
red tomato, donning an
embroidered cap, in colors
every day, navy blue, tan or grey

that hides his bald-pate. He throws
his salted lines a title, he underlines
peppered in black. And I sit
back and read how he plants his

seeds in a wooden bowl of
dreams. I'm cut up like an onion,
in rings. He's a cool cucumber dancing
in springs of parsley, dressing it down.

following him around in his souped
up Honda, looking like Jane
Fonda. Eating plates of greasy
food from diners, from Maine

to the Carolinas. Sleeping in cheap
motels flashing bright neon signs. Driving
over state lines. Stopping in Florida
for a break he breaks out in a sweat as he eyes

the college girls in Daytona beach. The ones
wearing thong bikinis, holding peach bellini’s
in their hands. Not that they'd ever look at the old
man. The guy writing poetry in the sand. The guy

married to the same woman. They both lost
their youth. Like a pulled tooth there's a big
space where it was. But he still has his
tongue that he wags. Eating lunch out of

paper bags and drinking bottled beer
out of the cooler, sitting in beach chairs
and scratching the stubble of hairs on his face
as he faces another day that he doesn’t get laid.