Old Shit

milk light of morning
spills in through the windowsill
spoiling good coffee

~~~

Before Leaving for Vegasorig. 4/6/05

She leans, looking west, ashing
Our last cigarette off the edge
Of my balcony at sunset. Bits
Of burnt paper float upwards
Like confused snowflakes and the sky,
Impatiently, sticks out its tongue.

~~~

The Way You Talk About Love
orig. 2/26/05

You make it sound like it is some kind
of choice, some thing
that we make, yes, but some thing
to otherwise run from? It is
that which chooses us, yes,
until we choose to let it
make us anew, yes it does that too.
You try forging it, and it just forges you.
But ever so cautiously? No, not never, honey;
something to be made?
The love you talk about
the way you talk about love
is only in your brain, and you know
that's not the same
place as your soul
or your body.

~~~

the washing machine was made for this
(for Zack)
orig. 2/28/05

there is an order to this random
-seeming string of events, my friend, there

has to be; consider your heartbeat: feel the way
you sync to the swelling of the song, which now
appears a conduit of feeling worth far more
than the aural total of its orchestral parts. love was

never a zero sum game, my friend, though you’ll
fight for believing in as much: "I only have patience
for the ones I don’t have
to work for," you tell me

it’s your cards which compel
you—they have been all
along, you insist, still
forgetting the sweat on your brow
which drips out the fact,
in rhythm, such a swelling exists
is itself born of numbers: look down

at your cards again; there must be rules
to this random-seeming game that we play.

consider
the odds:

the vast likelihood this very
moment should have been aborted: your father
having settled on a different wife, the third percussionist
in Toronto having had a bad trip that day, the dog
having been slightly less clumsy on the mattress
with the ashtray and any other endless
list of et ceteras.

no. we were meant to be
here and there is no other way
but now. the beauty
of the washing machine was made for this vibrating
music the way this moment was made
for our feeling and your heartbeat

made for this panic. oh yes, oh yes, say yes
there is an order to this random.