I’ll Be There for You When the Rain Starts to Pour
A few days before Halloween
we’re getting high
in an Ellicottville Airbnb
when the Internet tells me
Matthew Perry was found dead
in a hot tub.
I need to clear my head
so I leap up from the couch
grab a blueberry sour from the fridge
and step outside to the back deck
where our hot tub for the weekend
has been covered up against the rain.
Down the road
there’s a farm full of alpacas.
I saw them on the drive here
grazing in a field.
They looked so happy
being together like that.
Until Lust Comes Around Again
Back in 2005, Regina is behind
the wheel of her mom’s blue Kia Spectra
and Charlie is holding his harmonica
out the window letting the wind
play something sweet
when we hit a skunk on the 190
and the mouth organ
goes flying into the dark
seemingly gone forever.
Years later I’m driving
way over the speed limit
along that same stretch of road
with all four windows rolled down
and the snow blowing into my face.
Because going through a divorce
while sick with COVID
makes you a little desperate
for any kind of physical affection.
Suddenly I recall the lost harmonica
and the music of happier times.
So I slow down
adhere to the speed limit
and imagine a skunk full of life
burrowing in its den. It’s going to be
a long winter.
Slumlords a Thousand Miles Away
Out on the snowy street
Sean shuffles up to me
and shows me
a strange-looking bag
of weed.
He found it
at the end
of a gasoline rainbow
in the parking lot
of the Jim’s Steakout.
“It’s magical,”
he tells me.
Later in the night
we’re high
out of our minds
knocking on doors
of abandoned
apartment buildings.
Our friends
used to live here.
New Shit
When someone reads a poem
for the first time at an open mic
it sounds like a pair of scissors
cutting a fresh piece of construction paper.
This is our operating room
where we send more love out into the world.
You have to start with yourself
and hope the sound carries.
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