I wanted to like sports radio. I wanted
to dress like a boy. It makes sense
that nothing fulfills me, holding the lemon
neatly over the jar. Is this ending. Is this getting
what you want. Curled at the foot of grandpa’s
staircase, wondering if your blood was easy
to clean out of floorboards or of hair. What
do you have to do with me. You sang for me,
so I flew down. You assembled a large
armoire. I put together a plate of cookies.
Derelict empire of open betting. Not
or nothing you forget me, I know I made
your hard life harder. I don’t want anyone’s
interest. I don’t want money or a goat. We
love because he first loved us. Who is he. I
would never have been happy there, the
captain singing his long tunes, the young
suburb of your begotten lens factory. We’d
argue to have something else to do. Besides
fucking. Besides holding the satellite or
changing pillows on the couch. You had
a sadness I couldn’t reach into. We went
to every shitty diner, snowbanks hand-lettered
in the dark. The slight noise you make when
concentrating. I don’t know what else to do
but slumber. We’re at the end and I wish
you’d ask me. What to do with all these
tomatoes. I wish you’d ask about anything.
My steeple or my landscape. My painted
duchess. My glass eye, my otter. My basset
hound.