Category: Poem

when I started here my wife

gave me a white gold chronograph

from her jewelry store in the mall

like all successful salesmen here wear

it weighed my left hand down,

silver and crystal reflections

constantly tugging at my attentions

I left it

for this softer, flatter one, yes, yes

weeks ago the batteries stopped at 9:43

but my ex-wife still runs the jewelry store.

sipping rosé
beneath my rudderless patio umbrella
the recently divorced mother of two

is so
fucking
livid

by carpools, elevators, and skinny jeans
packed with stage actors
longing to buy her rosé.

A blank canvas
A surgical studio

The color of healing
The color of health

The birthplace of progress
The backdrop of achievement

The commitment to beginning
Again

I am a clean tomorrow
reflecting back a soiled today.

I am as much a solution
as a problem.

I am the color of
Definitively Solved.

When I am running,

left
pulling ahead of
right
pulling ahead
again

and
again

and
a gain

faster than
I think I can,

my stomach is empty.

My breath is
the wind
and my body
a cloud pushed
through a clear summer sky
ever faster,
ever steadier,
ever calmer,
ever easier.

Liquid breath
laughs
laps
against a stoney shore
rebounding
into a path
of cobblestone glass
tempting us to an unwritten horizon.

The still shoreline
a patient sawblade
the color of spent charcoal
and spilled blood.

Miles away
a lonely lighthouse.

sloppy, cold rain
drops
drop
a parking lot
of glaring headlights
onto my glasses
as I warily kick the arm
of a reluctant lug wrench
in brand new
flip
flops.

Traffic lights count down
to car horns complaining
over the smallest delay.

Miles of rope protect
the greenness of the park’s grass
from leaving on skinned knees.

Fountains are emptied
of water,
of pennies,
of hopes,
of delight.

The children are in a darkened museum,
next to extinct birds and mammals,
tapping unresponsive touch screens.