The blare of his saxophone
was not enough, nor the stroke
of his bedroom pendulum.
Tonight, he declaws and
grasps his neck. His choking
flickers like a night drift. He coddles
thoughts with wine, but
drinks his mind and shudders
within the rinds flattened bare
on his hairless chest. Dark,
the grass in summer?s glare
he tells himself during the clamor of sex,
then decides to laugh, remembers
he?s a liar, notes his trembling lip,
the melted butter brick his dog licked
up last morning after rotting for a week.
And he remembers he?d stuffed half his money
into a little gem and sewn it to the hem
of a dress he lost because of a simple
mistake stacked and repeated like
hundreds tumbling wood blocks.
His laughter echoes past the now
quiet shift of hips, the quick
succession of clicks beneath him.
