Leonard

methamphetamines by day and muscle relaxers by night

you stormed the typewriter with sunburnt skill

in assurance’s tropical attire

bought so-longs with a dreary timecard of sandblasted mornings

never-remembered stretches of 14-hour increments

weeks and weeks just gone

along with the wine and the children and the blank pages

as the desert dust pricks your tongue raw

houses smaller than red eyes

flights between living alone and together

sardine bones jagged in your teeth

hugging lunatics in sadder asylums of dance-less loves

slower to the show in the ragged fashions of fall

a martyred grief that just stows and staves on and on

off to other strikes that’ll never heal

the punctured worms of compunction that wriggle in

the found structures of matrimony’s kneeling

not so holy now

not so reverent as the bitter passengers gather like dead birds

ugly winnings wired to flimsy felt breath