so many more.

Lover #1 had no licenses. Didn’t need
one to play guitar. He jumped
off a stage to kiss me. But there were

so many more.

Lover #2 was made of glass
and tall and straight
and bottomless, which was
the little problem that became
my big problem along with

so many more.

Lover #3 is a secret
especially to me. I’m told
to pray and he will come. But
I only half believe. I worship
the moon, and she has no time
for such nonsense.

So no more.

any hope
of true REM. Her tolerance

for talking to drunks
has diminished
over a decade in reprieve

till it’s shrunk
to the size of a single shot
of espresso

she’s going to sip
in the morning start-over.

over through early morning fog.
Routine commuting becomes heightened
by the transcendent
moments before
the marathon begins

on the Verrazano
Narrows Bridge. By a skyline
permanently scarred, by a keel
built with steel
from collapsed towers, by film

and TV footage of our favorite
characters crossing one way
or the other. Sometimes someone
who’s had too much
winds up where he started

without getting closer
to home. Color

declares, or hides, or widens
the channel for multiple
interpretations. Always the same
orange, always the same
distance either way.

the ‘70s. She can’t hear Johnny
Nash sing “I Can See Clearly Now”

from an AM radio. Nothing
good can come from trying
to go back there. In a dream,
she is driving to Texas
on interstates in the dark
behind her sister and brother-in-law

till she remembers:
she doesn’t drive.

she says the word
out loud, it will become

her. No grace
period. She hums

“Female Jesus”
as she walks

the streets alone
at night—that last

Athens, GA, scene
still fresh. No colder

here than there—
and that’s the real pity.

I learned to walk. No coincidence,
no fate—just a fictional character

sending texts to a woman
fond of tracing shadows
without an overhead light.

the last scene, closes
books and shuts off
the light with five pages

left to read. She forgets
the definition of closure—
still talks to exes alive

or dead. Never
celebrates New Year’s Eve
where anyone can see her. Stops

writing a poem without completing
the arc

the footprint as a disciple
of home is
where you check in
without a check-out time. Tin
tile ceilings in the two-story

lobby. A triangle
park and a bluff
anchor all activity
in the oceanfront garden. Bonfire
night after night where effigies

of the over-worshipped burn.
What washes ashore below

erases questions and desire
for answers. I could drag
my dinghy across the sand
and know it’s time.