mdclxxxiv

All Day Sale at Nordstrom’s – Half Off

Is it better to be paid some small amount
for love? Or to pay it over?

Maybe it’s each penny I can’t help but
turn around, bend over, pick up. The twenty

I pocketed in front of Jake’s at the corner of
Main and Greenwood (where we had our first 

stop-light) (where we celebrated the closure of
cinema with Bambi riding The Ten Commandments).

Maybe you’re still the only one rich enough
to buy your own label just so you can cut a

record. When we drink our bloodies tomorrow
(yes, I know the sale lasts all day today and a

refrigerated rain is forecast) I’ll point out a
closet full of vinyl. And not just as a reminder

of a drunken laugh we had one Christmas. At
three, when the bugs fall silent and our mouths

are eliminated, we’ll take each other by the hand
and, as one, exorcise the haunted pond..... We

knocked knees until confidence settled in (it was
far more of a lake than a pond). A circumference

that dusted the sprinkles off our nose, our noses.
And rather than collapsing into a dark star, our sun

rose like doctors and lawyers. Over a bunch of
cows. They all move their mouths to the same

dream and awaken in hopes of a tomorrow.
A dream of being appointed ambassador,

perhaps. Or laureate. Our circle, our procreation, our
destiny, a death star that looms like celebrity. Do we

cherish our hands more for it? That we may return
(at such inconvenience) to exchange our pond for a lake?