On a Friday Night

The fireplace crackles with explosion of steam and cellulose,
Snapping like bubble wrap,
And there lies Joe, old dog, best dog,
Warm and arthritic.

Proposition Joe is no replacement for Avon Barksdale.
Marlo is no Stringer Bell.
The fourth season was mostly wasted.
Here I begin, with Joe, my evaluation of Season Five.

God, make it mean something--
Like Tony Soprano meant to me:
To be aware of our own storiness
Is no small feat.

Nathan Fisher, too, taught me this:
To live for today,
For this fire,
For my beautiful and loyal yellow dog,

Who warms himself by this fire,
Orange and yellow and red and crackly,
In Autumn,
On a Friday night.

Snow Leopard

My laptop tells me I have seven minutes left on my battery.
It's nice to know how much time I have left, but it makes me worry that I won't get the job done.
Or that I'll finish this poem before it's good and ready.

Half-baked.

After all, we had sworn that we would forget all the Spanish that we had ever learned--
That time when we snuck back across the border, from Mexico.
Pounding the pavement. Sun scorching the crown of our heads.

I have only five minutes left, which is good to know.

Then there was that other time, when we came back from Canadia,
And those portly security police gave us the business
Threatening us with a $20,000 fine.

Four.

Do you think it will be that way on the other side?
When we cross the border again,
The final time?

Three.

Even when you are expecting it, it goes quicker than you hope.

Two.

And so much is left undone. Unsaid.

One.

It really won't make much sense.

In the end.

Milford

I saw a picture of you the other day;

It was taken in that shitty apartment where you lived with my man Tito.

Ade was there, and Noah.

And you were eating tortilla chips

All together

On that couch where Shop Kitty lived,

Where Miles schooled me,

And I slept until 6:00 a.m.

Before walking back to the hotel

In the rain.

There are all of those books on that bookshelf behind you,

And that table with the soldering iron, bicycle cogs, tin cans, and

A dead sparrow.

Tito never didn't roll a fag.

The picture is yellowed with incandescence:

It's not the way it was, but it gives a sense of the way it was--

Warm, cozy,

Fucking too hot in August.

But it glows, that image, and it's all blurry with too little light or too much motion.

It messes with my mind, you looking down into that salsa bowl,

Ade looking at me, right through me,

Like she's the only one who knows.

You know, Mils, as a guy rolls through life--

Chewing phat with homies and whatnot,

And--being an asshole--not being down with what's down--

It passes.

And then it's gone.

. . .

It's a picture, see: it's not real now.

That's the point I'm trying to make.

Occupancy

Nothing 

Is fulfilling

As emptiness.

A heart acutely aware of vacancy,

Leaves no space

For occupancy

Of joy,

Of contentment,

Of pride,

Of satisfaction,

Of love.

The heart must break to make room.