i’ve lived with walking skeletons
made friends with alien millionaires
hell one time i witnessed a miracle
a prima ballerina assoluta
pirouetting without spotting
but nothing prepared me
for the thrust of hunting wild
game in the post-midnight air
now that is a pastoral vocation
a noble career haunted
only by whimsical decisions
leading to a few drinks
maybe too many
maybe not enough
who really cares
(counting is for athletes and scientists
musicians and captains of industry
anyway)
as with every imbibed dram
fashionable remorse plays Friday hooky
as contemporary memories replace
the finesse of idle gab
as the digestion of a stranger’s pathos
becomes attainable with every desolate breath
as the pull of a hair-trigger
discharges a double-aught cartridge
we’re weaving that fifth-mile home quick-fast
in yr sample sale blouse and Ann Taylor Lofts
that flea market shawl deftly removed
prior to the pivot of that master key
out of the corner of my eye i watch
that drowning gabardine saunter towards
the concrete in a hummingbird’s heartbeat
don’t get that worsted wool wet
whiplash we splash into an ocean
of bespoke bedsheets enveloping ourselves
forever in goose down sealing
the fever like a drop of melted wax
stamped with a royal decree
upstage of this orchestral waltz
our ballet is on point
with an e in this dream
in this reality our pas de deux
lasted three measures
but damn it was good
a standing ovation
now back to first position
