poem of the day 11.29.09

so you’re the one

so you’re the one, she says.

i’m in the wine store
with a handful of cheap french bottles
trying to replace all of the wine that my wife and i drank.

you’re the one who’s been
drinking all of my wine.

your wine? i say.

the store owner laughs nervously.
he dresses nice, better than i ever could.
i’m probably putting his kid through college
with how much money i spend here.

yes, she says.
she points to my bottles.
that’s my favorite wine.
it’s so smooth and it doesn’t give you a headache.

that’s nice, i say, putting the bottles down.

the store owner rings them up
on his brand new, digital cash register.

vivaldi is playing the background
and i realize then and there
how much i hate vivaldi and this wine store owner
how much i wish there was somewhere else to go.

now i know, she says, putting her
wine on the counter
as soon as i take my bagged bottles.
now i know who’s been drinking all of my wine.
i can put a face to the culprit she says.

i guess you can, i say.
then i leave the store
and begin the slow walk up third avenue
toward the apartment
bracing myself against the wind
coming off the ugly, brown river.

poem of the day 11.28.09

comb on the floor

my father is on his hands
and knees
he can’t find his
comb on the floor
and he is blaming my mother
telling her she’s the one
moving shit around
all of the time.

they have been here
for two days
and i started drinking
at eight in the morning
on thanksgiving.

my father is on his hands
and knees
he finds his comb underneath
his own travel bag
he then proceeds to move all
of his things
across my living room
away from my mother’s things

and the two piles
of luggage stay like that
for the rest of the holiday
separated
like two boxers in their respective
corners
waiting for the next round
to begin.

poem of the day 11.25.09

stuffed

i take another beer out
of the refrigerator
and drink it

i shouldn’t be taking these beers
because they are for holiday guests.

the apartment is a wreck.
i do not know how to clean.
i do not know how to entertain.

i’ve already had to replace
half of the holiday wine we bought
because my wife and i drank it
sitting on the couch
complaining about how
we don’t know how to clean
about how we don’t know how
to entertain.

i get drunk and i blame her family
for making ten of us get together
for dinner on black friday

she gets drunk and blames my parents
for staying with us for three days
in our cramped apartment.

i accuse her of spending
too much money on trifles
and she accuses me of not liking
the brand new cranberry colored tablecloth.

it would be easier to just slit
our wrists now
rather than go through with any of this.

but we don’t.

my wife and i are survivors
of this holiday bullshit
suffering the good will of the many
as we get drunk on wine
suffering the laughter and the conversation
the inquiry about jobs
and people talking about
their mundane lives
as if each moment were great literature

my wife and i have this shit down pat.

we know what to do.
we keep something of ourselves buried
in the basement.

we wait on january 2nd
when the holiday lights go dim
and all the garbage bags are full of
animal carcasses and bones

when pulpy gift boxes
rest against christmas trees
that are losing their brown needles
in bulk

and the people are off the streets for good
in the malls returning everything
that they were given
or in the movies theaters watching this years
oscar crap
or in their warm homes, stuffed,
beached like whales
waiting on the sacrifice of 365 more days

we wait until that day
and we crack open a new bottle of wine
pull up the blinds
and watch the snow fall
on the desolate street
grinning like a couple of assholes
at the slaughter.

poem of the day 11.24.09

what ails us all

most people catch colds
in the winter
but i stay sick
all year.

there is a man
on the steps of the
train station

he’s on his back
surrounded
by the cops
and paramedics

people rubberneck
and tie up the foot traffic
just to get a look
at his
wincing face

they want to know
what’s wrong with him
what happened?

but i know

i can look into any of their
salivating faces
into their dull, competing eyes
peer up into their red, sickly nostrils

and i just know

what’s wrong with him
what weakens me
what ails us all.

poem of the day 11.23.09

wrong conversation

you see
without kerouac i don’t know
what would’ve become of me
maybe i’d have become some office drone
or a teacher living in the suburbs
with a wife
and two kids that i hate
or i would’ve stayed in the warehouse.

it was his message and that verse
that got me
it’s what i tried to emulate for years
or recreate in my own stuff

the exuberance
the joy

but i’ve never been a joyful person
i’m spiteful and mean most
of the time
i never saw things with any kind
of holy glee

humanity has been a horror to me
ever since i was a child

and that might be why
i picked up bukowski
and fante, and all of those stone cold
others
why i like ray carver stories

i don’t know

that stuff just seemed real to me
raw
like their guts were spilled out
on the street
instead of being stuffed up buddha’s asshole

don’t get me wrong
i still love kerouac
and i still get that tingle of youth
when i read on the road
it’s ginsberg and corso
burroughs
and all the rest
that i can do without now.

and don’t get me started on gary snyder.

i just don’t care for that
holy
holy
holy
shit anymore.

that’s nice, she said,
but can we get back to talking
about why
you don’t want to
go to dinner
with my family
and your family
next friday night?

poem of the day 11.21.09

cockblocker

there is nowhere to sit
on the train
except across from a lady
with a huge baby carriage.

i usually avoid sitting across
from baby carriages.
i find most children to be ugly
and a sick representation
of the future
but my back is hurting.

it is a pleasant surprise
when i sit down
to see that the woman with
the baby
is wearing a miniskirt
with fishnet stockings.

she is black
and the baby is white
and neither of those details
have anything to do with this poem.

i take out a book
and pretend to read
but i am really looking
at the woman’s legs
or, more to the point,
in between them.

i’m wondering what kind
of panties she has on
if she’s even wearing them.
at first i feel bad about doing this
but when i look up i see that the woman
is playing videogames
on her cell phone
and the music on the device is low
but still annoying to me

i figure fuck her
and i keep looking.

i turn the page on my book
for good measure.

it is then that i feel a tugging
at my hands
i look away from the woman’s crotch
and there is the baby
really a one or two year old
he looks like an ape
reaching across and grabbing
at my bookmark.

look, you little fucker
i whisper
stop doing that.

the baby looks up at me
and laughs.
he pulls out my bookmark
and it falls on the floor.

little prick
i say
picking up the bookmark.
the whole time the woman
is still playing video games
on her cell phone.
she has yet to spread her legs
to give me a look.

i put my bookmark in
and keep at her.

the baby lunges forward again
and tries to grab at my book.

look, you fleshy turd,
i whisper,
i’ll drop you out of an airplane
i sell you to africa for food
or make a delicate soup out of you

the kid gurgles at me
and squeals.
he puts both hands on his carriage
and rocks the thing.
the woman stops playing
her video game
to slap his hands.

then the fucker starts to whine

shit, i think.
i’m never going to get a look
at this woman’s goods.
i look around the train
but there’s no other seat.

fuck it, i think.
i’ll be there shortly.

then the baby really gets
going
crying and shaking the carriage
murdering the silence
in the train.

he rocks back and forth
moves his head up and screams.
the woman sighs
and puts away her cell phone
she spreads her legs
as she attends to the little brat
but all of that golden paradise
is being blocked by his ugly, wailing head.

goddamn it, i say.
the man next to me gives me a look.
i’ll tear him apart, i think.
i’ll tear this man apart
and then i’ll beat his corpse
with that wailing devil
of a child.

but i never get the chance to.
we come to the next stop
and the woman gets up.
she straps back the howling bastard
an in an instant
they are gone.

suddenly the train is silent
i put my book away
and close my eyes
praying to god that i’m impotent
and that my wife took her
pill on time
the other morning.

poem of the day 11.20.09

walking anachronism

sore hip
sore groin
sore foot
and sore chin
paralyzed standing here
nothing but
meat
blood
and bones
out of place
out of mind
sore shoulder
and shins
a walking anachronism
in the land
where high schools
look like prisons
the prisons are packed
with the forgotten
and the damned
and every whore
walks down the street
wearing sunglasses
in the rain
thinking they’re going
to be
the next
big
thing.

poem of the day 11.19.09

never gets better

the thirteen year-old kid
notices that i’ve been wearing
the same gray t-shirt
for two days now.
he tells me that i need
to get a new shirt.

wear two shirts, he says
because he can see my nipples
through this one.

he says that i need to cover up.

his friends laugh
so i ask him what he’s doing
looking at a man’s boobs
anyway.

and it’s his turn to get laughed at.

i think
it never gets better
it never changes
from childhood to death
the physical imperfections
made manifest
in these contests
in the senseless flyting between people
needed just to get through the day.

i keep on at the kid
ask him if he likes staring
at men’s chests
insinuate that maybe he has
a preference for his own kind.

it’s cruel, i know
i am the adult in this situation
but this little fucker is paying
for all of the fuckers that came before him
the kids on the playground with their dull faces
the girls with their perky tits
and tight little asses
giving their love away
to someone else

this kid is getting almost
thirty years of pent-up shit.

i ask him if he looks at all of the boys
or just me
his friends laugh again
i ask him if he’s always been this way
his friends laugh
i see his smile fade
the cockiness fall away
as his eyes well up with tears
as the years of torment get
stripped away from me.

i get ready to ask him about
the boys in the locker room showers
but then i stop myself
thinking enough is enough.

this isn’t mercy i’m giving to him
but my own suffocating humanity
trying to make it to the light.

we look at each other
until a common ground is reached
our tit for tat finished.

then he and his friends
go their way
and i go mine
resolving never to attack a kid like
that again
and not wake up hungover again tomorrow
for the third straight day
grabbing whatever shirt is laying
on the dirty, wooden floor
on my wife’s side
of the bed.

poem of the day 11.18.09

and oldie but a .......well:

an old fuck

when we were finished
she fell back
and began talking
about a mechanic
she knew
in kentucky.
i had heard
about this mechanic
too often
and especially
wasn’t interested
in hearing about him
while my lips
were still wet
with the taste
of her cunt.
still, i kept quiet
as she prattled
on
about her past,
the sad history
of her life,
that i silently
soon hoped to be
a part of
(the past that is).
and now
a decade has gone
and i wonder if
some other guy
is laying in the
dark with her
and hearing stories
about me,
or if i’ve somehow
been looked over
for a better
anecdote.

08.10.06

poem of the day 11.17.09

never at their feet

my wife and i
watch a table full of seniors
sit like the yapping dead
on a sunday night
discussing the size of
jumbo shrimp with the waiter
who was supposed
to have had our beers
about five minutes ago.
they are questioning
the exact shape of the food
slurping orange goop
down their aged mouths
while my budweiser light
is getting warm on the bar.
i think about how much
i hate these old people
most of the aged in general
and i do not feel bad for this
after all, they are not plato or socrates
there is no great wisdom to be garnered
in their vacant eyes
there is no hemlock in that woman’s bowl.
and i am not blissfully unaware
that one day i could be sitting in that exact seat
badgering the waiter
about the number of fries on my plate
or about the room’s temperature.
anything is, as they say, possible.
but i’d like to think i’d have
more sense than that
should i become one of these
social security soul suckers
i’d like to think that i’d just stay home
with the television on full blast
drinking ensure mixed with whiskey
waiting on the mailman
or waiting on the blessed touch of good old death
rather than inflicting
the masses with my presence
on a warm sunday night
complaining about the consistency
of tomato soup
and how hard the packet of butter feels.

poem of the day 11.16.09

landlord

landlord
with his rent envelopes
outside every door
landlord
with his buzzing
hallway lights
and flies coming
in every ripped screen
landlord
with his brown water
that gives me the shits
landlord
with his timer lights
that never work
landlord
with his rents
on storage spaces
that cost only one-hundred bucks
a month
landlord
with his pants full of dollars
landlord
speaking eternity
landlord
with his work projects
and orange cones outside
my living room door
landlord
with his pretty leases
for one year
or two years more
landlord
with yards of broken blinds
and window frames
landlord
with suicide cockroaches
overturned in the basement
landlord
with his washing machines
blowing cold air
landlord
you live eternal
in all our hearts.

poem of the day 11.13.09

crossing abbey road in the rain

when we get there
there are two idiots standing in the middle
of the street, posing, holding up traffic.

i tell my wife that this is stupid
as i catch raindrops on my tongue
and think about british beer.

i tell here that i want to turn back
and find a pub
but she won’t go because we walked
three miles to get here
in a continuous mist

and aren’t i a big beatles fan?

she’s feeling guilty because she’s dominated
the trip visiting the old homes of
shakespeare and virginia woolfe,
j.m. barrie,
although i didn’t mind at all.

she starts taking photographs of
the intersection
catching the famous crosswalk
before more people do their poses
and more car horns blast out at us fool
getting soaked in the english afternoon.

then more people show up.
other americans.
the chinese.
russians and germans
a whole world of beatles fans
the masses that won’t let the past simply
die or fade away.

there is a family holding up everything
smiling like morons
standing in the flow of traffic
stopping and doing every single
pose that the beatles did on the cover
of the album.

christ, i think,
there is no god
there can’t be.

my wife tells me to cross the street
and i say no
just get pictures of the thing
but she prods on, talking about how
i might never get back here
so i do it
walking fast so as to not become some
asinine spectacle
like the rest of them.

this is dumb
how can i not be a spectacle?
another tourist in the gray mist
of a long line of tourists wearing down
the white rubber on this street?

i cross the street and ask her if that’s
good enough
but my wife wants me to do it again
and again
so i get in the line and cross
then cross back
then do it a third time
as the rain gets harder
and pride becomes impossible to find.

after i cross a fourth time
i look at my wife and she tells me that she
didn’t get a good shot because the camera closed.
its batteries are dying.
i say to hell with it, let’s go and find a pub.

but we haven’t taken her picture yet.
so i grab the camera and turn it on
the red “low battery” light flashing at me
as my wife smiles
and crosses abbey road in the rain
and i think, well, this could’ve been worse.

we could’ve gone to see all of the stiffs
at madam tussauds instead.

poem of the day 11.12.09

to the young kids on the street

i get stuck at the same red light every day
because i am a fool
and the kids are on the street
a young girl, she is my super’s daughter
she comes over and feeds that cats
when we are away
and she is talking to a boy her age
which is thirteen or fourteen
and she doesn’t notice me stuck
at this forever light.
they are close and talking, touching
the two of them making plans.
she has a smile on her face, the kind
of smile that enamored women get.
damn, they start them young, i think,
waiting on this red light.
but i shouldn’t be surprised.
girls looked like that when i was young
it’s just that they never looked that way
toward me.
well, i finally get the green and cross.
they are still standing there
two young kids on the street
this is the way it starts
trying to find love or something else.
and when she sees me, the super’s daughter
gets cold toward her boyfriend
as if i’m going to tell her dad about her
innocent little tryst.
tell him?
i can’t even get the guy to fix
my window or my toilet
what am i going to tell him? i think.
but i feel bad because she leaves the boy
just standing there
his face red and flustered.
he calls to her and she give him quick answers
walking quickly toward her building.
she won’t look back at him.
i want to tell him not to worry about it.
he has a lifetime not to understand women
her, and all of the other ones
that will tangle up his heart.
but being the cause of this breech of romance
i think it’s best to keep my mouth shut.
so i stop on the sidewalk
and look in my bag for nothing
giving them time
until the boys leaves
and the girls is close enough to our building
so that she and i won’t have to speak
and i’ll keep being the guy in 1r
and she’ll keep being the little girl
who cleans out the cat shit for us
and the world between us
can keep all of its blessed, goddamned secrets
another golden day.

poem of the day 11.11.09

swallowing

i asked her how much
longer she wanted to
and she stopped and looked
up at me and smiled.
she said, well, i don’t want
to be down here all day.
but she went at it again
and i stroked her blonde hair
as she bobbed her head.
i thought about my old girlfriend
and how she told me about
the time her ex came in her
hair because he forgot
to warn her beforehand
and she had to jerk her head
away, violently.
she made it sound like
it was the worst thing in the world
nearly swallowing his come
having it caught in the curls
of her hair.
and did i know how long
it took her to get it out?
she said it was like removing
gum or something.
that’s why she always used her
hand on me instead.
but this young blonde
resting down below my belly
she looked so determined
and challenged by the task at hand.
her lips looked so full
i could tell that
she wanted me to go all the way.
but i wasn’t so sure that i could do it.
i’d never done it that way before.
it was the latent catholic in me
a man who was the victim of his
ex-girlfriend’s cautionary tale.
and i felt bad for it taking so long
for thinking about the old girlfriend
and her hang ups
that i thought i should end this drama
and i almost did stop the whole operation
but then the blonde grabbed my hips
she caressed my balls
then put her hands under my ass
to cradle me
to press me in deeper.
she moaned loudly
sounding garbled, like she was
drowning.
then she grabbed my shaft
and began simultaneously
stroking and sucking.
i moaned the moan
of the awakening dead
and got a pillow to cover my mouth
so that my roommate wouldn’t hear.
and when we were done
the blonde lifted her head and smiled
at me
she kissed my cock
and i thought
well, there’s one more thing
she does better than the ex ever did.

poem of the day 11.10.09

as the poet speaks

she sketches pictures of books
in notebooks
very defined and detailed
as the poet speaks.

she closes her eyes and tries
to make a good show of it
while the poet reads his poetry
and talks about whitman
and social reform.

the poet talks about the awards
that he’s won
for fiction and for non-fiction
while she text messages a friend
some triviality
while she writes down her
grocery list
and checks her voice mail.

the poet talks about his charity work
with kids in the ghetto
with the public zoo
with the sad and aging
as she yawns
and asks the person next to her
where the restrooms are
when it is she thinks
that they’ll be serving
dinner
at this meeting
where the poet
is the key note speaker
and such a big, big draw.

poem of the day 11.09.09

a raw version of this poem bombed in front of a room full of poets
and librarians. i feel surprisingly comforted by that notion:

death, etc.

you like walking on an empty street
at nght
and all you can talk about is death lately.
death, death, death.
it’s like you’re obsessed with it.
and quit saying it’s the chest pains.
the doctor told you that it was gas.
it’s not cancer.
it’s not a heart attack.
you just need to take a shit, that’s all.
but for you it’s death.
pointless, poetic death.
death always.
death, etc.
you can’t rectify the past and the present.
you wish you were fourteen again
but you always tell everyone that you had
a miserable childhood.
look at you, you’re thirty-five
and everything is killing you.
new york.
the job.
people.
the subway.
you have no clue how young you really are.
death.
and on top of it you’re vain.
you spend more time in front of a mirror
than a woman does.
am i too fat?
you tell everyone about your man boobs
and your love handles.
no one cares.
you keep making your wife compare you
to every fat man on the street.
do i look like him?
am i as fat as him?
jesus christ, isn’t it enough that she thinks
you look good?
that she thinks you’re sexy?
no, you want nineteen year-old girls to look at you.
well, buddy, nineteen year-old girls don’t know
that you’re alive.
pizza is killing you.
the football season is killing you.
red meat is killing you.
but you won’t become a vegetarian
vegetarians aren’t real men, you say.
how stupid?
where’d you come up
with that archaic, john wayne horseshit?
take a yoga class
and get over yourself.
death
death always.
death, etc.
that’s all you’re good for these days.
you used to be a hell of a lot more fun.

poem of the day 11.07.09

poem of the day 11.06.09

king of these four walls

the hall light
keeps buzzing
you can hear it
through the walls
and you know
the super won’t
fix it until at least
the new year
so you might as well get used to it
as you have the fruit flies
that won’t die
and the weeks
without end
outside you hear the kids
the cars
the rain
and you drink
your scotch
and wish for silence
knowing it is
too much to ask.
people write you about
new homes
new jobs
and new babies
and you wonder how it is
that they haven’t
killed themselves yet
how they haven’t
drown in the mendacity
of the american dream
you wonder why you haven’t
done away with yourself
as well.
maybe you’re just tired
tired of the words
and the trick of life
maybe it is best
to just sit here forever
king of these four walls
with two lazy cats
for your court
and a floor full of dust
as your royal subjects.

poem of the day 11.05.09

marital bliss

i tell her
my brother just called
he was in a fender bender
pulling out of a strip mall
is working nothing but
twelve-hour shifts at the store
works 2 a.m. to 4 p.m. tonight
the house he’s building
is all fucked up
it has the wrong cabinets in it
or some shit like that
but his wife wants
to close on the place anyway
so that they get it in
in time for the government rebate
threatens to divorce him
if he doesn’t sign on the place
and she cries on the phone
to my mother when she calls
who promptly calls my brother
who’s en route
to another best western
to sleep away another night
of his marital bliss alone
in a rented bed
and informs him that he’s
ruining his life and his marriage
to which he tells her, my mother,
to go and fuck herself
and he calls me from the hotel bar
half-crocked on vodka
threatening to beat up
the home contractor
and a table full of suits sitting
next to him and talking loudly.

“wow,” she says.

“i know,” i say.

“i always thought you’d be the first one
to tell your mother to go and fuck herself.”

poem of the day 11.04.09

end again

i remember
she was crying on the phone
she said
i could’ve waited
until you were thirty
or forty even
but you had
to go and screw all of this up
my mother thinks
you’re cheating on me
and i don’t know
what to think
and really
you’ve left
me no choice here
but to end this
so that’s
what i’m doing
right now
i’m ending things with you.
then she got off the phone
and i left the basement
to get myself
a beer from the refrigerator
i went into the backyard
it was november
thirty degrees outside
and i was only
twenty-one years old
free
and i swear
i felt better in that moment
than i had in the
last six months
and fourteen years later
i still get a tingle
in my chest
just thinking about it.
so thank you
thank you, mary
it was the best thing
you’d ever done for me
in our twenty-one months together,
baby.

poem of the day 11.03.09

finding a place for dinner

the team had lost
the bottle had emptied
and the books weren’t doing it for us.
so we went for a walk
and watched the sickness of people
taking down halloween decorations
and putting up their lights
for christmas in early november
lamenting the days where they
used to hang nothing for a few weeks
missing the breather in between
the seasons.

“we should find a place,” my wife said.

“i guess we should.”

“there’ll be eight of us. my parents.
your parents. my sister and her husband.”

“that is eight,” i said.

“we need to find a broad menu.”

“yes.”

we kept walking.
this was our cross
my wife and i who didn’t bother anybody
who didn’t call unless we were asked
who never sent christmas cards
or had dinner parties
or asked to visit
or had everyone over for thanksgiving dinner
we were always stuck with finding a restaurant
for people to dine in
ten people
eight people
the last supper for christ’s sake
this was our cross
even though we hated eating in large groups.

“what about this italian restaurant,” she said. “wait, you’re
father hates italian.”

“he’ll get over it. what about here?” i pointed
to a place dressed in neon.

“that’s a bar. you always find the bars.
no one will want to eat in a bar except
for us.”

“yes, i forgot.
we come from such privileged stock,” i said.

“be nice.”

we kept moving, looking into
restaurants where people were dining and talking
about what people talked about.
football games were on large televisions
to drown out the verbal monotony
of the well-fed masses.
none of the places looked good to us.
maybe it was the people inside.
i wished i saw the restaurants empty
then maybe i’d find something appealing about them.

“it’s all of these damned people,” i said.

“huh?”

“nothing.”

“i wish we could do foreign food,” my wife said.

“but now you’re eliminating everyone,” i said.

“my sister and her husband like foreign food.”

“of course they do.”

we moved on
only to end up back where we began.
the night had a chill
our bellies rumbled with hunger
of food and more drink
and the moon was blurred by the night sky.
i thought about how i had
to work six days straight starting tomorrow
and how i couldn’t care less
about a dinner that was a month away.

“look, why don’t we just find a place
no matter the food, and call it a day,” i said.
“and fuck this whole thing.”

“but i don’t want people to be disappointed,”
my wife said.

“you can’t stop the inevitable.”

“do you think?”

“i do.”

we stopped in front of that same italian joint.
inside people were talking and laughing
just like all of the other places.
in one room was a large table full of people
eating and throwing down wine.
there were eight people at the table
and my stomach dropped.

“this looks like the place for sure,” i said.

“but your father?”

“never mind him,” i said.

“fine. i’ll go and grab a menu,” my wife said.
“and then after we’ll go and get another bottle
of wine.”

“good,” i said, staring into the night
as green and red and white, and orange lights
all melted into one ugly color
as someone told a joke inside the italian restaurant
one that i didn’t hear
but that made the whole table of eight
burst out into uncontrollable laughter
the sound of their cackling making me
want to jump off the bridge in the distance
dressed for the night
in lights of beautiful blue and gold.

poem of the day 11.02.09

making out

i’m drunk again
i have my shoes on
and a dirty wine stained
t-shirt.
i’m doing this thing now
where
if assholes linger too long
on the street
with the bass going
in their cars
i go outside and tell them
to shut it
the fuck off.

i’ve only tried it once
and the guy drove away
as soon as i approached his car.

this must be how the young man
becomes the old man, i think.
how the world begins
to pass you by.

and tonight
they are at it again
a couple lingering
across the street
against a big, black s.u.v.
with rap playing.
i’ve had i don’t know
how many scotches
and the giants lost again
for the third time straight.

what are you doing? my wife asks.

“i’m handling these motherfuckers,”
i tell her.

“but you’re in your underwear
and you have boots on.”

“i don’t care.”

“it’s almost midnight.”

“something has to be done.”

“why don’t you come back and sit
with me on the couch. let’s finish these
drinks and go to bed,” she says.

“after,” i say.

i look outside the window again.
it is a blonde with no ass
and some prick with his hat on backwards.
they are leaning up against the s.u.v.
kissing.

“christ,” i say. “they’re making out.”

“good,” my wife says, slugging down
her drink. “at least somebody in the world
is making out tonight.”