She slept in the bed
while he slept on the couch
so he could hear their sick daughter
and her three-day-old cough.
And in the morning
while she moved around the kitchen
and the kids watched too-loud TV
and coughed a little more,
he crept back into the bed,
curled up in the body warmth
she’d left behind
and they slept together
separated
only by time.
Category: Book o’ Verse
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Bedtime
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Slowly
Just because you turn
slowly slowly
to check her out
slowly
as she walks past
doesn’t mean
that she don’t notice. -
Culturally deprived
“Snow!” he shouted
tossing clouds of
thin, white sand at the beach
making snowmen
out of sand
with their heads
lying down
and their arms are wet planks
and their toes knotted kelp
and they never melt
until the sun explodes. -
Different
I must be someone very different to him than I am to me.
Maybe I'm some fast-talking jack-ass some know-it all jerkweed some high-maintenance poindexter.
If he saw me in a bar he would hate me in that bar.
I hope god doesn't see me through his eyes.
-
Plastic cups
You could find us by the smell of cheap wine in open-air plastic cups.
See, we'd walked into this sunny summer party unguarded booze them all in college us two in high school. Strolling the lawn with our big red cups held chest-high both hands.
We were alert and amazed. Thick-haired and thin-faced.
Bobbing along like tipsy rowboats.
Sipping small sips.
Invisible. But not odorless.
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Bacon
My son wants bacon made out of coffee for me and bacon made out of orange juice for him.
Leave those pigs alone!
But keep the bacon coming.
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A thing
A thing a day a written thing a thought a memory a day it's not too much to ask too much to do.
-
In Florida
In Florida, the land of the dead for me. All those memories of bouncing on airboats through swamps, and wandering around exotic bird parks, and listening to King Crimson on the wide lawn under the wide sky by the reflecting lagoon.
And sometimes driving, sometimes walking over to my great aunts, and uncles, apartments for bowl snacks and conversation.
There was that one time -- Meyer borrowed our walkman. Suddenly volume spun all the way up, all the way up he could hear again. Oh my god such a smile.
All gone now, that gang. There were two Irvings.
And all alligators gone. All tennis courts gone. All rec centers gone with miles of immaculate green felt pool tables.
Key West too.
And Florida is for me. The land of the dead for me.
-
I want to build a house
I want to build a house with Richard Brautigan up on the third floor.
Looking out a large window at open land hands on the windowsill.
Wearing that old hat that old vest those old glasses.
He looks good.
-
Bad-ass astronomer
Do you know how many stars up there -- how many of those nighttime naked-eye stars-that-you-can-see are part of our local little galaxy?
Not off in the broader universe representing some distant cluster.
Just local twinkle. Milky Way shine.
Do you know? Do you? Do you?
How about all of them?
Motherfucker.