GRAND PRIX

Skirt around the sin of circling around a skirt, that soft cleft—a little Latin chin, a little original sin—I sin, I swear I did, and still I win—despite your theft.

Every song worth singing is blue but nothing about the poet's “I” cools the tune; the guy that saw you pissing in your wishing well swears he won't tell; still, why do you keep on hidin' that hidden devil so long up your flue?

I sees it through each and every day; then I throw it, toss it, let it drift away and it's gone, long gone—anyway—in all its inconceivably allusive staying on or maybe coming back in the chorus of some cheesy folk singer's cheesy folk song.

My memory of it—and you—is gone, yet the words I write are still trying to kill you over and over—and again—can only reach out further into the pain in the ass that you continue to become, a stain on the world I wiped, I washed, and wrung out to dry (still gardening at night).

Because that skunk you always were, it seems to me, the pug hiding its white stripe in all that black, came skulking up to spray and you stunk up the place with all your grip-less gripe in gray and endless abandoning of your you and he and I.

From love to lacklove, juice to must, and justice to dust in 60 seconds; you keep on waving goodbye but never leave.

4/28/2011

Florence