poem of the day 01.30.14

on george rubio’s porch

calvin had this thing

about pissing on george rubio’s porch

we’d be at the bar or the strip club

and out of nowhere he’d turn to me and say

let’s go and take a piss on george rubio’s porch

it seemed a little nonsensical to me

especially when surrounded by beer and half-naked women

i wasn’t george rubio’s biggest fan

but i didn’t want to piss on his porch either

i didn’t know what it was for calvin

george rubio was his friend

i thought they were tight

but then there’d calvin go

some stripper’s ass in his face

his fifth or sixth bottle of beer half-finished

talking about pissing on george rubio’s porch

fuck george rubio he’d say

then he’d down his beer and shove another dollar

in the stripper’s g-string

she’d smile and shake her ass and walk away

and calvin would never know it

he was in the zone

maybe it was a macho thing

some way for calvin to get back at george

for always spiking his coffee with ketchup and salt

saturdays at the eat’n’park

man, if my girlfriend only knew what we were doing

the summer i turned twenty-one

she and i argued all of the time back then

she thought that i was cheating on her

i guess i was with beer and strippers

and dates to piss on george rubio’s porch

it was the kind of shit you did when you were drunk

and young and out of options

but there we’d go

neither of us in any shape to drive

crawling slowly up city streets

looking for george rubio’s house

calvin always had the bass in his car going too high

and i worried we’d get caught

but no one ever came out

soon enough there we’d be

standing on a dark porch long after midnight

on george rubio’s porch

filled with old bats and gloves

chairs that were used to save parking spots in the winter

a cooler george used for soda and beer when he went fishing

calvin would turn away from me

and i’d turn away from him

in no time came the hot hiss of urine on concrete

on all george’s stuff  and in the cooler too

then the quiet laughter of two idiots getting their last kicks

not worrying about jobs or money or girlfriends

or beer or strippers of the future

but handling the task at hand

pissing on george rubio’s porch

on a humid summer night in pittsburgh

when the age of twenty-one felt like it was going to last forever

and the rising sun was like a pause button

on all the new good times

we thought we were always going to have.