Shelf Life
The mornings (on how many will I deduce?)
(…gut-wrenching
-ly) rather fondly
the cat dashing at rest on the counter
fingerprint-blotched panes of floury sky
cut to crumbles with fog’s lackadaisical drift
fragile (heat-chilled pirouetting amok) to the gusty phrase
we slice our better fractions into toasted jagged fifths
likely settled (or do we say, “I am leaving now, dear…”?) just enough
to stand sitting’s abiding oath
(brought lengthwise to this)
a scattering of errands between us
in hold (magnets to move) on the surface (each-to-each on the fridge)
to release after lasts and before firsts
become whimpering and jaded to a (adagio here, please) lackluster finish
if I (in incompetence) strain you
(my one, along with jittery legs of daily-news intake) and only
you
(are my,
then) everything
still
it is these (SSRI) desperate (side-effected) and unique seasons together
strung like retired bad comedians from the ceiling
that elapse (and fold nauseasted, grumpy) and in returning
(you to me) from any post office or skate rink
we get to have them
with (even now and forever too) always
each other
it’s almost time to move the car
from one side of the street
to the other
Every mark pocked a bit of its own diaspora
In the wilderness of dry lightning’s jostling content
Windows wide and covered at 4 am
A humid burst of sulfur stink curls through bathroom windows
and leaks to groggy bedrooms
where we were sounding out Arabic-like gibberish on our sides
And the wind’s highway speeding
Knocking over candles with the flares and flap of drapes
Reeling without durable sleep in the curse of night’s crying blazes
Sweating in and out of it all
Caught in the constant Doppler buzz and drone of oscillating table fans
It’ll bring a rounded hush to us
By morning’s last cedar-tinged blush
In the scrape of coffee grounds hot off the press
To busy us with broken news and noteworthy occurrences
And maybe a jangling pinch of music’s strangest drug
To let us allow our thoughts to themselves
Kick the curbstone
And dance
Inseparable and abstruse
Clinging to each other’s tank tops
By the light of the eggy moon
All through the day
And into whatever all these disparate and strange tattered tomorrows might bring
Well then
Let’s get blitzed on Burmese gin fizzes
And line the bookshelves with empty bottles and missing buttons
Cry each other’s names by neurosis of darker walls
Frameless pictures
And capabilities gone neutral before the vacuum cleaner breaks
As the bandy-branched coastal redwoods go on
Straining for shade as they always have
Long before there was such a place called Oakland
Do not doubt for even a moment that I do not wholly and forever love you
Stilled in the morning’s frustrated glances
Even wordless
Before coffee
A stilted upkeep on this hunkering machine
I heave with the Wurlitzer in my skull
My ever-rehearsing getaway driver white-knuckled
To avert poorly planned escape routes
As that ineffable desire for irreplaceable objects
To get too attached to
Defines more than just a reproach
Or a healthy attitude towards it
Because every breakable thing
Falls to its shattered demise
Eventually
But for you I crawl eagerly from morning’s craggy moan
To cover songs and bluer renditions of screaming fits gone to gray roses
Something to punch along to too
Maybe like a shoulder blade’s tickle or shitty luck’s caustic pangs
I’ll write an opera about your slippers
The flattened black fluff-infused ones you left
Over a goose-shaped beer stain on the carpet
In that dingy small kept place
Where I used to do my living
