Monday, April 7, 2014

7/30: it isn't as bad as it sounds, i promise.

On the days when she does not come, at least
she sends a note.  More Dear Sweetheart than
Dear John, less rejection letter and more regret
to decline the invitation.  It’s fine, of course; I’m used
to the days without her, go about the apartment
just the same, step over the laundry, occasionally wipe
the dirt off the soles of my feet, don’t even look
at the neglected mop - how is it any of the mop’s business
what I do with my time, anyway?  Because the days
when Joy doesn’t come round are not really days, after all,
are they?  Just extensions of the nights when we both know
I won’t be doing any sleeping.  Here, the trash
I should take down to the street, there,
the sand I shook from my bag after the beach
and never swept up.  Now and then an empty glass
with a faint film in the bottom which I will not wash
before I fill it back up.  Who does Joy

think she is anyway?  How is she so fucking
special that I need her around to get anything done?
Maybe things are better left undone, because who am I
if not a to-do list forever unfinished, a love note
never unfolded, a single woman more comfortable
with Dirt and Despair at the end of the day, who wouldn’t
even know what to do if Joy called.

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