drunk pants dance

"that's why i keep finding
coins on the floor,"
she laughs.

I struggle, standing on one
foot, to get my pants
off.

everything is
falling
out of my pockets.

nature poem

a pigeon lands a

few feet away from me

shakes its tail feathers

pecks at the concrete

struts around and nods:

yes, you’re wearing last night's clothes

yes, you haven’t brushed your teeth yet

yes, you’re drunk at 2:30 in the afternoon

here comes another pigeon

he doesn't have anything new to tell me

I go inside

crack another beer open

sip the spray-off from the top

and

nod to myself
in birdlike acquiescence 

grey area

just imagine a Venn diagram,

she tells me.

and I do.

in my mind,

I draw one

circle each on

two

separate pieces of paper.

then tell her,

I think this is the end.

In Secret

I imagine your

shoulders

naked in the sunlight.

I draw maps with your

freckles

that  

lead to

places we can

only go in

secret.

she left a

pair of earrings

on the

nightstand

beside

my bed.

I told her so.

they are cheap, she said.

the whole thing

feels

cheap to

me.

I would feel

worse

if she

didn’t like Led Zeppelin,

I think. 

I’ll ask her later

in bed

in my boxers

drinking a beer

with

Knut Hamsun

clothes that need to be folded

and

a finished City Paper crossword

listening to

George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”

wondering:

what would my mother think of me?

I am

starting to

forget my mother:

does that bother her as much as it

bothers

me?

bzzzz

I watch a bee

alight on a 

dandelion,

drunk and

dizzy with the

idea of

Spring.