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You never smashed your friend
in the head with a big heavy steel chair.
Why would you?
You were busy lassoing corn
in an empty field—you had only
a nickel to your name,
and that’s the good news.
The bad news? I’m not especially
skilled in flying planes.
Rather take the red eye
than a weekend bender.
I’d rather call you before bedtime
wailing away on my guitar
in a krautrock drone.
The entire duration of the call
is simply music, and, dare i say,
the fish are biting
so efficiently, and it is so good.
It continues to be good
long after the soup’s been on,
a tiny god cradling a watermelon.
I wish I knew what it all meant:
what this thing I can’t see offers,
what I remember about rain.
How green the grass is right now
at 5 p.m. on a Wednesday.
A cherry cigarette in soft light
peels for your negroni.
We’re just in it for the money,
readjusting lakeward
where the porcelain sky
never shifts, and everything
is a slam dunk.
I wouldn’t give it up
for all the onions in heaven.
A tenderness
long into the night
catapults us beautifully
toward demon time.
I hope there’s music in the next life.
