A STORY INTERRUPTED BY SNOW

Each sinewy strand of sadness

rolls off his tongue like compressed

bagpipes. When he says love

it sounds like bug or a persistent cough.

Like a bad tooth. I want to say yank on it,

sucker, but he's buying drugs from me.

I know more than he does,

having swallowed more evidence.

I’m not selling happy endings,

just additional chapters in a never-

ending scrapbook of despair.

Though neither of us quite calls it that.

What’s he love? What I have. The story

never unfolds -- it just uncrumples

from its wadded ball, and even then

it's a cryptic fragment. The man’s going to

tune up his lopsided piano and slow dance

with the devil’s third wife, or maybe just nod off

into the bittersweet taste of limbo. He doesn’t need

directions. Love? Did he really say love?

When he walks away, I briefly

dispute the money already pocketed.

‘More where that came from’—my theme song,

and lazy snow whispering down from the sky

is the chorus. Everything’s negotiable,

even blame. Don’t take the world’s hum

for granted, and don’t take the Lord’s name

with you when it wants to stay put.

If you’ve never imagined

yourself here, then your imagination

is just a hot iron pressing out the wrinkles.

Just look at the snow, dude.

Snow, and the tracks.