so it goes

finally alone
but now
the coffee is cold
the dogs won’t stop
barking at
imaginary agony
the smell of diaper
rash cream
still lingers on
my fingers from
masturbating
earlier

Williams is open
to page 33
and all he can
tell me
is of
the fragility of flowers
and Persephone’s
cow pasture

and then there’s O’Hara
thinking of me
as I shake hands with LeRoi

my crippled wrist flinching
from another dog fight

imagining two corpses
holding each other
in the summer sun still 
trying to show us
love in a world
consumed by cruelty

but it’s raining now
cooling off

the cat is sleeping
in a basket
with the remote controls
and I’m wondering
what Andy Peterson
is doing right now

I imagine him stretched
out over the sheets
Bill Berkson in his hands
at 10:08 a.m.
on a Tuesday in July

and how I’ll probably
call him soon
and leave him a poem
over his voicemail
before going
off
to work

and then of course
there’s Bridgit
who will
be having her
baby any day now
as Jared reminds us
that the end of this is us

and talking yesterday
about the marvel rooms of chance

it occurred to me
that if I hadn’t
driven drunk
and stoned
with Armentrout
in Boulder, CO

I would likely have never
met my wife

and as we consider
these eternal
questions of life

it’s important to stop
and occasionally
reflect on
reason and purpose

to think
I’ve come all the way
from Buffalo, NY
through acne
and glasses
an abortion
two marriages
two mothers-in-
law named Jane
graduate school
expecting a child
an alcoholic father
a speech impediment
trips across the country
and back again
poetry pills fried eggs
ice cream cones
and credit card bills

to write this poem
and to mention
the retarded
Wal-Mart greeter
the one in the wheelchair
drooling on her collar

a lavender streak dyed
into her hair
her hand-me-down
sneakers having walked
a thousand miles
on someone else’s feet