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Say tomorrow doesn’t come.
Say the moon becomes an icy pit.
Say the sweet-gum tree is petrified.
Say the sun’s a foul black tire fire.
Say the owl’s eyes are pinpricks.
Say the raccoon’s a hot tar stain.
Say the shirt’s plastic ditch-litter.
Say the kitchen’s a cow’s corpse.
Say we never get to see it: bright
future, stuck like a bum star, never
coming close, never dazzling.
Say we never meet her. Never him.
Say we spend our last moments staring
at each other, hands knotted together,
clutching the dog, watching the sky burn.
Say, It doesn’t matter. Say, That would be
enough. Say you’d still want this: us alive,
right here, feeling lucky.

At night from my window I’d watch the liquor store owner
drag down his metal door, the spray-painted portrait
of his wife materializing above the dates of her birth
& death, she had those eyes that follow
you around, I couldn’t see the stars that winter
unless they froze & fell like broken glass, the moon was so
high it looked like an overdose, I was so sick with grief
I wanted to stab a streetlight behind its curtain of fog & deliver
a mournful soliloquy to a trembling little dog under
a blank marquee, the stoplights rocked in
ruthless wind, bicycles churned through the slushy intersection,
a staggering blanket-clad couple paused to argue beneath
the wife’s uneven blue eyes, their voices rising up to meet me
full of song & misery