Them Lake Street Drunks

Eight in the morning, sun slanting through the cracked blinds
cranky and bright
as I feast on cereal and coffee,
shuffling face cards and mispronouncing names of birds in the bay window,
while the trash trucks gang up on the one-way’s cans,
stalling the morning commute:
these are the times like these;
times that I miss you the most,
more than usual,
more than always,
like I always do.

Your magnets still stuck on my refrigerator,
your portraits of soccer hooligans,
your collages of MRI scanners and meat clipped from newspaper ads,
your hand-sewed pouches and tiny keepsakes still all over where
you’re never around.

I’m doing okay,
pursuing the delicate and dubious distinction of being me.
There’s the James Webb Space Telescope to look forward to.
There’s another election coming up too —
maybe a more humane result for the world this time —
and a new subway station is being built a few blocks away.
San Francisco?
Well, it’s taking a crack at dying a tidy boutique death,
casually checked into a crumby SRO for construction’s…