Lassitude

Everyone is
beautiful at
20

aren’t they?

The first time I heard her
she was already middle aged

she walked in on his back
standing dirty in the doorway
a limewhite aura fuzzled
pink around his head

I’d like to hear you sing

and so would you
you say
but you don’t know
you don’t know
you don’t know
do you

what I mean
when I say
H A R M O N Y

an intensely personal narrative

my life
my words

there is no
culling
one from the other

an intensely boring personal narrative

which I write
in funky impossible
jazz shapes
which no one can
manage
to format
CORRECT

hangtime
hangtime
there is no more
hangtime

and perhaps
I
am to be the one
who calls drunk
and not
the receiver

never
the receiver

my tongue curls
at the high notes
my dimples sink
at the memory

at the memory
at the memory
at

all

the memories

the crinkly satin
of what I almost
did not wear,
the curl
of his fingers
deep inside

and all of it all of it all of it
R E A L

as real as Tony Bennet’s
toupee