Blankets

I want to make
a distinction.

I have these
knit
sheets,
and they’re
woven out
of
the universe,
and they _stretch_
just as wide.

They’re as soft as you
like,
but they have
an
otherness
to them—
like maybe
if you start
to believe in them
they might
suffocate you.

Anyhow,
I don’t use them
for much
except
to try
and keep
undercover.

Then there’s this
quilted
heavy sonuvabitch
and it sits
on its haunches
as.
.ke.
w.
like your smile,
and that’s the
ocean,
this quilt of
mine;
it has that
weightiness
that even
the universe
can’t compete
with.

And I know,
you will say
well, the
universe
contains the ocean
after all,
but
maybe
I might
take issue
with
that.

It takes a lifetime
to fall in love
and
no
time
at all.

A Man’s Garden

A man’s moral code
is like his garden.

He tends it and
cares
for it
at his leisure
and for his
pleasure,
and
he treats it
with insecticides
and churns in
rich soils—
little preventative
elixirs and nourishing
potentialities—and he guards it
against
decay.

There is always some small corner,
however,
which he leaves
in just the soil
available and in which
he does not
co-mingle
any superficial
delineation
or
order; he may
acknowledge it
or not; he may
be aware of it
or let it
prick
his subconscious
(usually suppressed
by a late-night glass
of water).

His garden may be marked by color,
by outgrowth,
by scent,
by chaos,
or by flow;
it matters not–
so long
as he may
breathe
deeply
in it
and of it.

And,
every
now and then,
someone may wander
close enough
to his
garden
and feel free
themselves
to comment upon it.

“What a lovely
sanctuary,”
they’ll say,
and he will
thank them with
a strange mixture
of pride
and
self-deprecation,
pointing out
some
aesthetic flaw
or other
(no doubt his inner eye
may then
.fl.ash. upon
the exquisitely
unmanicured
small corner
of wildness);
but,
when they have gone,
he will wonder
if any of this
is really
worth
any of
his trouble
at
all.

3 BRITA Water Pitchers

You used to live
in an apartment
with three other
girls
and I had to laugh
at the
multiple
BRITA
water pitchers
in your fridge.

Once, I did the dishes
while I waited for you to return from
an errand
and your roommate
was embarrassed
and you
were
mortified,
but I just enjoyed
using my elbows
and the way
the warm,
soapy water
slipped and
tumbled over
my
hands.

That was years ago,
now.

I wonder
how
that can be.

I have to say,
ya know,
guys I know—
they wonder
what a
girl
smells like;
what she does to make
herself
smile;
what color
panties
she’s wearing;
or, maybe
just what shade
of amber
her bedside
lamp
burns
before she
sighs,
turns it off,
and hums
herself
to sleep
(me, I know
that even you
drool on your pillow,
sometimes).

But I
wonder what your fridge looks
like
when it’s almost
empty—
what skeleton,
nearly empty
sauces and salad dressings
cling to the
frigid air—
then there’s that juice
you bought
that you’d thought
you would
like,
but
hadn’t.

I don’t know
why
I wonder
about
any of
that.

Maybe it’s
because
I’m getting
used
to
the quiet—
and
that
scares hell
out of
me.