It’s 9:31 PM where the end
of the city tinges the sea. An empty
spiderweb hangs motionless between
the blinds & the closed window leaking
the street’s neon onto the unmade bed. No
moon. Not even the comfort of wine,
bottles shaped like the body I want,
& will never have. I keep thinking about
the group of boys I passed huddled
around their broken car like priests over
an altar. I want to drink, to forget;
it makes the fashion of my sadness
tolerable. Driving on the highway, city
-fluxed, sober, trying to ignore my engine
light, my mind’s tidal drift reminds me
I never made it to my childhood
best friend’s funeral. Avoided it,
so I didn’t have to see his family,
the sharp angles of his still face. The radio
asks where the joy has gone; I try
to find it, I do, admire clouds, make food
for the people I claim to love. & the difference
between a claim & a lie is my hands,
their learned fluency in devotion
under the passage of each spent moon.
& the difference between the end of the sea
& the start of the sea, is how I feel
when I open the window & listen
to the pages of the water turn. Tonight
the sky tastes like ozone & time—I buy
a bouquet of chrysanthemums
for my beloved, a full tank of gas.
There’s safety from suicidal ideation
in imagining the material reality of the other
drivers, the names of their daughters
or sons as strange as wildflowers
a loved one might leave
on their sudden tombs. After
I spend the night piecing back together
what fragments I can still
recall of my first friend’s face,
I am however sober it takes
to watch the ghosts
of our hometown retreat
from the blanket of the rising sun.
