Little Thoughts

I scratch the inside of

my ear and

wonder:

what will

she be wearing

tonight?

is she

convinced that I don’t

care one way or the other

if she shaves her

legs?

Couch Surfer

“I’m studying Proust,” she says.

"I’m reading Celine."

“ever read Bukowski in French?” I ask her.

“yes,” she says, “he’s better in

French.”

“I’ll teach you French in two or three hours,” she says

it won’t take

that

long, I think to

myself.

all of that hair

falling down the back

of her

dress

in long black

curls

the shape of her nose

her big feet.

I’m drinking vodka orange

and tripping on mushrooms

terrified of all that

French.

beer and peanuts and
an empty stomach
drunk and the
Yankees took two out of three from
the Orioles in Baltimore and
everyday for the last
week I've fallen in
love
over and over again
with the girl
that orders a small Americano and an extra shot

she used to order
salads from Giovanni's
and
every time
she got one, I
would ask if I could
eat the olives.

"sure, I'm not in the mood for olives
today," she would say.
(she said that almost every time.)

tonight,
I had a can of olives for dinner.

Collected Poems of Carl Sandburg

the jacket is on the
floor of my bedroom and the
book is in my bag
but I just carry it around and forget it's there

and rarely read it

love is like a
receipt in 
your back pocket

you forget about it
put your pants in the wash 
and later find pieces of crumpled, faded 
paper in the 
lint trap of your dryer.

limbo

hallways are
portals that lead to
two trapdoors.