June in a shower of loveseats all piled against my door. June
masquerading as a lover as my favorite month.
The symphony begins to hum young boys young girls squirm in their seats at the opera
hard disks of flower candy melting on their tongue
Summer spring summer’s dizzy
I’m dizzy you hold my hand to stop me from spinning
\\\ \\\ \\\ Dashes just to separate us from the here and the now
Everywhere you look there’s another toad lifting its head up.
I sit on a deck chair. On someone’s lap. Friends offer me a green lollipop to lick.
There are many problems with our house and with the world we are all quietly
miserable eating a bagel in the poolhouse, I nudge a green hose away with my leg
chlorine draining on the tile wisteria creeping down in the corner of my eye
soon it will overtake the whole house
I arrive too early to your dinner party. You’re still on the hors d'oeuvres. I make myself useful
piping salt, mustard, chives into goblet-eggs, dicing pancetta, sucking oil off my fingers,
leaning against the counter flirting with the soft light
When I return home to my toads my toads are starting a revolution I empty my aquarium of
sparsely moving fish to house them. I’d do anything for my toads I told you as much, how the biggest ones bully the other ones beating on their faucet-like heads with small meaty palms…
I may be getting my animals mixed up. But I care.
Beginning of summer and I care. I rent an auto-feeder, weathered instruction manuals, chew toys
shaped like mice I think about building cabins for my toads
I just want the best for my toads
Daybreak I go to a truck draw some blood the lady grey hair grey
glasses empties me into a bag
I buy butter at the bodega wipe some blood off the sidewalk lamppost
Home is dark, you never saw my toads. You wanted to undress all our problems and hang them up in a closet walk-in foggy mirror. Sound is sound and butter-thick. Moonshine.
I’m dreading the next day— after the wine wears off what things will pour from your lips. We’re a cliche you still change my lightbulbs you’re the one who switches them on and off and on and off and on and off…
I’ve been holding you at arms length I’ve been avoiding all your questions.
We lived our entire life in separate rooms.
My hairclips your cologne
crowding up each other’s bathrooms,
neat hedge hedge fund crowd hedge maze…
the front door open… the moon outside a perfect slice.