One Day, Waiting

The bruise on her face matches the markings on her dog.

i am not staring. i am noticing, my concern scored to Siouxsie and the Banshees, which brings me to my mom.

the past always becomes math,

an interrogation à la:

(forceful, perhaps Sam Jackson’s voice as Jules)

where were you on the night of -

the last night?

Not last night?

the last night!

On the last night, i was thinking too much about how i looked and what to eat and if i could be good enough for a person now i haven’t known for years…

she keeps walking so far away that she is just a bruise in the landscape. A floater. i’m a floater, too; nice to meet you.

what matters to you for a thousand cycles of moon and sun

will matter to you for the rest of your life

a theory, i presume

enchanté.

The air kisses my hand, and again, i am in presence

i will work hard to avoid the sound of plastic, though i never mind the touch. What a wonder, its permanence inside me

living on and on

past my will to live whenever crows pick a part poison…

i bet they get to my plastic, outlasting,

my tender bones exposed

minus organ systems, minus water, plus time

(something finite)

= microplastics, not even your unknown goals remain.

Laser focus finds fading beauty

riddled with error,

uncanny accidents piled up into a valley,

actually just a crevice on grand scale.

happy to see things in gesture

for the first time in my life

like the best memories

nested in the worst periods of life.

Watching Short Cuts on the couch

in the final days of knowing you

our attributions to the wonder

fulfilled and burdened by the body,

really just a giant bruise

the bruise that contains all your other bruises

also called leaks, also called memories

walking down the sidewalk away from me.