And for us

I had a dream about Becky

And she was smiling and giving me shit

Like cousins will do

And I told you when you asked why

I was laughing

And you didn't understand

And I was confused

‘Because she is gone’

You reminded me, but

She wasn't then

And I was happy

And woke to cry

And remembered your year

And strength

In a hospital bed

You

Never cared much for poetry

And I

Care

For it and read

To sleeping you

All asleep in a hospital bed

Hoping my soft recitation

Seeps in, holds you like cloth,

Like I can not, have not

For a month

In a hospital bed

Greektown17

On Saturday nights it's all

Sirens and calamity

Two dead birds

Again

.

.

Pushing

Remnants of a house on VanDyke Street

Seasons first snow on new coal-

burned boards.

Sure, the winds blew in before

Now what's left assumes the other.

Collecting white in the carcass ribs

And on steps that don't go nowhere,

They go up two feet

To the remnants of a house on Van Dyke Street.

Oct.17

‘It's ok to go through droughts,

You tell yourself,

While getting older.’

-He tells himself

And feeling younger than he should.

Lermp Rompy

:A forest without trees

You without me

When life makes more sense than

It makes more sense backwards:

A Line Drawing Of A Thin Man

It's weird, walking around
a combination of acquisitions
tucked in shallow breaths
next to the swollen mid-century
      - modern in the past -
         - tense in the gut -
           blue in the face.

stolen from a vat of ephemeral sound
echoing off candy wrappers,
          stuck in cobwebs,
 gaskets and cork-brick bubbles.

They are the things I had to save!
I am here to serve nostalgic clothing
from another life, VHS tapes and
    the water stained-and-nailed
Farrah all teeth, in red tits
to a new nose and different pallets

scary in transition,
                faults and relief
 I bend to bring the box to the car,
    a line drawing of a thin man