Poetry
Favorite Restaurant
you keep trying to get it right
alcohol
restaurants
tonight’s menu on the placemate again
a sweat-crusted "what?"
he’s just happy to see you—
Jean’s spelled an S.O.S. in white tape
"OWNER CUT POW_ _"
in her loft windows
two letters short of a message
such a huge prize
you order a hamburger,
drink
Moon separated from Jean’s building
electricity separated from her air conditioner
both joined
in a relationship of absence—
Real estate over love
real estate
love
Loneliness lives
in the mind. Real estate
lives around the body
you chose loneliness
over interrupting love
more poets commit suicide than painters
does this make them less__________ or more _____________?
He would ride naked on a horse
dance samba with brooms
still you look on blankly
it kills you,
bitch.
Jean paints with the power cut,
he loves you though you sidestep
though you come back to this place
again and again
trying to get it right
its moon and the message
written very nearly
clearly before you—
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