She knows enough of me by now, doesn't she?
To predict such a flinch, as we walk down the steps, we'll step back, start to kiss, but then she left,
I digress.
I mean our memories, they were always ill anyway,
stretched out upon the table, a few breaths left before death.
Sitting back to relax, a glass in palms grasp.
A statement started, abruptly halted, "oh do not ask, what is it".
They all wear suspenders underneath their vests.
These days, a rubix smoothed, the colors muffled by our comments.

The ladies dawdle in the hall,
Speaking of andy warhol.

The bartender beneath the staircase says that it's last call.
And I've already known tonight, all the nights I'll live, I've lived them all.
The glass clinks and spools of slipping time spread themselves in shadows on the wall.
And how should I resume? To walk once more, streets unknown?
She turned, transfixed, a single point, each foot half arched and me, maladroit.



I thought of Christmas, with her maybe morning, I'd be smothered by blankets, we would stand in the snow melting. I could see both our shadows. (when our skin was still white)
The mailbox- empty, as always, no letters, she's standing, beside me, I'm glancing, she's squandered.
We wander, with wishes, we might grow closer towards them.
But such burials, retreats, are always half-lived.
She curls her turtleneck above the nape, over her lips.

The ladies dawdle in the hall,
Speaking of andy warhol.

The bartender beneath the staircase says that it's last call.
And I've already lived tonight, I've lived them all.

And how should I resume?
To smudge my skin, thread my hair, flatten each wrinkle? Why would I bother?
Peel away, tissues of scar, mend the tears, alter an image. Why do I, deserve another?

I could have been a smattered scroll of celluloid.
smashed under her background noise.

Instead shall I think, that she stays in the pieces, I keep several letters, they're tattered, she sent them.
I can smooth them with my fingers, stretch my legs across hardwood.
Hips rolled in attics, cardigans in suitcases, I keep many remnants, none of them are worthless.
A single sheet of paper, scrawled with ink, her hands one evening, writing silent, "Everything exists-
you just can't see all of it."
The clothesline of our time is one worn by terse remarks
Of closed eye moments, mere blades of grass crumpled.

And there is always the morning, the morning when we stretched our arms,
Maybe we noticed, oh what is it that they say, that they say of age, of growth, decay?
The morning, when we stretched, until the evening there were creases, I forget,
The bed was bloody, (I keep strands of her hair inside lockets) we tried to hold onto a second.
But our cells were growing thin.
As we stand alone, side by side in empty wooden rooms
Playing violins carved from each others skin.
No, but I meant to say, I meant to explain
There was only enough time, only enough time to try
At least we had our instants, (I needed them to understand distance)
But she knows me enough already by now, doesn't she?
And in short, I was lying.



And could it have been what we wanted, anyway?
Your hands were not made to make apple pies, you know.
A picket fence, greener grass, someone made from you and I
Would it have been right, to live a life that was a lie?
None of these rooms have ever worn a wedding ring anyway.
All the red blankets, all the yellow lights, all the empty evenings
Would never suffice.
Canceled checks, coffee stains, after all the after alls.
Would it have been worth it? I doubt it.
After all, keyless locks are not a new concept.

And if, when her eyes, with no lids leaving leverage
Could turn from me towards a knowledge, the knowing of a curvature
The subtle movement of her index finger, mimicking a message.
Her awareness of her body beside mine, the heavy weight of the tired bracelet,
Tracing a direction, a voice asking "pardon, where is the exit?"
I will be besides, anyway there are always other lives.
We often leave, shrugging love aside
Beneath the roads others walk.
A splash of light escapes the pavement
As you stutter to think of what you could say-

Though there is no one now, nor anymore, in this empty room
Except the room itself, perhaps I wonder, I am speaking into a spoon.
The voice curves into itself, a hollowed parabola of letters,
each word siphoned slowly, through the choking voicebox filter,
puckered and flicked and gutted like a thin sheet of clear plastic
bending between the thumb and the index,
bouncing out and falling towards
the silence of a ground so tarnished.

Though I know, I do
That what I've heard, it was not true.
Spoons do not speak to me.
Mere distortion, an amputee.
We have lingered in the chambers
Of this human sea, reality
And we wait here, watching, waning
The tides breaking against eternity raining.
After all, they break, regardless
Of you, or of me.
They break, they break, and they were broken
By the way we came to be.