The spoon turns red
and somewhere in your
leftover emotional knapsack
the sky looks like I’m
running. It's true.
And by the time I get to where I’m
shooting,
I forgot it was her who got me to
pull the trigger.
So,
I keep my face
in the light of a match
and the dark of a foxhole,
remembering how she slutted her way out
through the bar doors, wishing I proposed
before I was sent here:
little black haircut
and little black dress
and long milky legs swaying through the swinging
doors like wet playing cards.
I knew why
my blood was so warm
yet seemed so much like
antacid:
in the winter
the little needles of
memory spring up like Christmas
tree cones.
I slide between reality
and the blades of an old
Victorian ceiling fan.
The carpet is deep
and beige.
The wind bellows through the
barred-up windows and against
the concrete alleys, repeating the chorus:
Sure, darling,
I must be fucked up to kill these
innocents,
but so
are
you!