ow

you aren't him, i think that's why it worked: the clean shorts in the morning, laughing in my ear about the gypsy cab, the street where i got wasted by midnight. nursing through numbness. bowls, basketball. and the mona lisa sandwich (which i didn't order). i'll never write a word on a water bottle, only faces, thanks for your twelve year old grateful dead belt and for being my bandaid

zimmy

i saw the ghost of bobbo on a baseball field in new jersey.
it really was him, wide-brim Panama hat and long purple jacket,
he didn't acknowledge me.
he had no eyes just water blue, pools, and surprised us with smiles.
he croaked, and the songs were all different.
there he was, unabashed and smokey,

my Woody Guthrie in the summer and all i could do was hum

early wednesday

“Why?”
Because you were gentle with the dog and got the insanity.
Then, for the only time ever, I had a lighter in my purse,
and instead of saying “thanks”
(or “bye”)
I think you accidentally said “good”

And two nights next we kissed by garbage,
Love

ghostchasing

Is “Blood on the Tracks” really sleeping music?
I listen to it in the morning.

It's better when it's cloudy,
but wretched in the sun,
Like a toothache.

I'm always deciding whether or not to tattoo a Jack of Hearts on my side
Or just a “Return to” sticker with Mars on it...

Come Back.
Your shirts don't smell like you anymore,
The Jim Beam is almost gone,
and I scrubbed the shower clean.

I have no one to cheat with.

I walk back down Broadway
cold under the light

I am more conscious of cigarette breath now-

I forget what it is I like about your voice.

Everyone has cigarette breath here:

Why didn't you?

lunch, water and wall

My ultra-light cigarettes
two brief criticisms of Obama
Well-dressed, your loafers my sandals
You sit up straight and your eyes help you talk.

I try to match you as I explain that the condoms
we grabbed were Ray's, and were supposed to be for us.

We giggle at our inside joke,
and about how you don't use them.

I think to myself for about the fifth time how I'd fuck you in public.
You smile.

valiente

While I'm watching the cinema version of you
get his heart broken by the fictional version of me,
My mom calls me to tell me two things: One,
That the doctor who performed her uncomfortable EKG
was fired before she got a chance to complain,

And two, that I am very brave.
I laughed once.

dreamcatcher

He came to me over a breakfast of green eggs and iron fries.
He wore a turban that could have been either red or champagne
and wore his robes elegantly, like dames do
He spoke in a low tenor and suggested we make an agreement on the issue at hand
I threw my fork at him but was reminded not to get testy while not in control
I took a sip of iodine and took two breaths, and agreed to sign the papers he held out to me through beautiful clawed fingers.

“Here it is” he said, and I saw pink and
on the scroll was you and
something resembling me and
a house with three windows

I put an “x” by the flowerbed and penned my last initial,
and when I finished I saw blue
as he turned the contract over

Revealing a star, a bear, and a diamond
All hand drawn by me last night
The star perfect and pointed and the bear vicious like waves
and the diamond as white as I've ever seen white,

and I throw myself at his feet as his turban falls over my bowed crown
and I tried to scream for a reverse but nothing,
except a hum from him that could only mean silver linings
and in my head you and the picture of me danced
barefoot in the mud over a diamond
so small and so embedded that I forgot it shone once
as I look to the ground and move with your cracking soles