How about, anything good is an ally of love?
I think I can live with that, stay afloat.
While Jessica reads her poems,
her neck pulses with short syllables
and the sky in the big windows blues.
Does Jessica do special neck workouts?
And if I listen to Christina’s voice,
it is even more soul-shaped when I look
at everybody’s scuffed and relaxed shoes.
And then Jill answers the energy in people
with her own energy, speaking
of such of awful things with interpretive heat.
And afterwards, it feels so bearably sad.
Everybody is so good. Nobody goes out.
I stop the car, park it, walk over to the river
by the footbridge, the Charles lined with irregular
daffodil beds. I would like to lie down
in the sudden paradise after the shitty winter,
the nice parts of which, the snow and the cold,
were an illusion of old times, undeserved to boot.
Lamentably, I decline some pot
from Generation Y on behalf of X.
The pointed crew boats
point in odd directions
after the strenuous practice,
floating with painted hulls
you can see as the rowing stops,
the drifting starts.
This time twilight starts
very low, at the bottom of the river
and then floats up to the top.
As I walk away
from the twilight river,
the green grass still looks golden
and more unreasonably green,
and the sky above me
hasn’t heard the dinner bell, still
the color in toothpaste
or a pile of folded tee shirts.
The buildings at the far western
corner of the city
drowse like bees
in the haloing pollen light.
There is nothing to do with any of this
but exchange text messages
with my friend who isn’t there
and stand in the middle of the sidewalk.
What else is there in heaven and earth?
Nothing but longing and information.
