Call Me Well Again
I’ve survived another you
saliva infectious
dreary and shopworn
I tear through the streets wildly
search for
someone’s discarded shred of home
soft sheets
a fireplace perhaps
light operatic music
it’s just a fantasy
non-existent
any minute your truck will come barreling through
my thoughts of salvation
I’ll get by on a lower dosage
of you
We’ll cut it down to three days a week
I’ll end up stalking you
grip the light post
to climb the rim of the dumpster
try to peer in
your window
You’re agitated now
I’m so low I’m a slinking
belly scraping beggar
no real reason I’m lingering outside
in thirty-five degrees
wearing a denim jacket
you shuffle me to the truck
I’m edging away
from two failed marriages
put it all on them
but it was me me me
When I’m well again
I’ll come calling
fresh as babies’ skin
holding a tray of Starbucks
While I Wait for my Lover
The buzz and hum of New York City
fills the air
I tuck into a restaurant for cover
small
Italian
quiet
The couple at the table next to me
sort through sonogram prints
I feel a pang of jealousy at
the little fetus forming in this woman’s
belly
My lover
late – and certainly not mine alone
has no interest in children
For his sake
I forego this
I cannot help but stare
longingly into the abyss of those
black and whites
that little heart
tiny head
this embryo I turn my body
away from
for martyrdom
yet it’s the thing that calls to me
from some primal part of
my makeup
I’m on the edge now
sacrificing the eggs
I feel bouncing around
in my uterus
for some blind pact
that later seals the deal
of which we will be much
happier
together
without kids
While I Wait for my Lover (Cont.)
The woman feels my eyes
says it’s a boy
smiles uncontrollably
I worm around in my seat
the couple finally gone
I am left alone
and this is how it will be
as I decided I’ve passed that exit
many many highways before
I’ll just wait for my lover to show up
and order us scotch on the rocks
for the long pull of loneliness
has begun to root
What Will Your Mother Say
When she finds your corpse
with foam bubbling
down your chin
eyes sunk deep
in your sockets
black spreading around
your lids and mouth
the needle still stuck
frozen
You
in your aloneness
You
in your dying
As your mother cracks open
lays across you
the spoon now cold
your spirit beats against the window
pleads
with God
to let you
back in
To see her in a pile
of grief and longing
so deep
your soul evaporates
into the pain
What will she tell
your siblings
the school
the bus driver
the crossing guard
it was an accident
always is
Wait for the autopsy
to understand
what went wrong
deep in the gully of absent parenting
divorce
boyfriend fondlers
What Will Your Mother Say (Cont.)
booze
cigs
marijuana
heroine
here……..
As you lay hardened
frothing
a slow last milky tear oozing
She still wants you
she begs
to glue you
for a day – just one day
even if it’s your druggy lean against the wall
eyes open to a slit
turtle movements
slurred speech
if just that…than the hell of this
to speak of you
now
in your deadness
