it’s frustrating
when you’re trying
to teach your offspring
to fly off
from the nest
when
they are pigeons
the size of bowling balls
with no desire
to put aerodynamics
to the test
high school interrupted
in the 1990’s
your flannel shirt
was a cultural ticket
that took you
greasy haired
through a graffiti pocked
bathroom stall door
to a grunge wünderland
where herpes came standard
with every tribal tattoo
nirvana whining
about your libido
a mosquito
&
girlfriends untrue
your dreams will be
dry humped
in a Geo Metro,
Generation X,
your so-called life…
high school interrupted
…eating Pearl Jam until
Zima vomit came to the house party too
with green apple jollyranchers
attended by
your skankiest girlfriend
who smoked Marlboro Reds
with the acumen
of a triple divorcee
her eyelids
the trashiest
ice blue
kissing booth
bravado poet he was
and i dumbly followed
fully knowing
his titles were shit
with a snake oil smile
performative assholery
but it took a near death
blood loss event
near wild boar swamps
in an Arkansas tar pit
to see
the true excrement
was the content
of his character
the world as it was
i am with you
in this strange new
unreality
i remember the world
as it was
as you were
in case
you need reminding
such promise
it was a hot wednesday afternoon
i saw her downtown
this old high school classmate of mine
valedictorian of her class
hanging like a drying dish rag
on the pock-covered arm
of her fourth divorce
they looked like they had just driven in
from a northern shithole township
to taste
of the urban opioid market
oh,
merri smyth
merri smyth
full of
such
promise
please
tell me this
how is it
you are not
an astrophysicist
instead
a
mother of seven
living and dying
on public assistance
shock jock
there are times
i feel like the only person alive
who feels that
one Bukowski
was enough
master class
i suppose you could say
i’m one of those people
who has seen more than their
fair share of things
you will certainly find
me adept
in a broad range of topics
from culinary techniques
to obscure music
embalming
comic books
addictive substances
and
lesser know shitty diners
of the northeast
some of it owed to college
and my need
to join the rat race too soon
mostly it was my proclivities
my insistence on taking
a master class
in dating old fucks
what an education
Paris in the rain
a woman’s life
is too tenuous
delicate
billowy
spider web
close call on I-75
in preterm labor
on the way to the
Paris airport
in the rain
fragile
beautiful
precious
sacrosanct
finite
for bad friends
bad family
bad coffee
bad shoes
bad mattresses
bad jobs
bad husbands
bad debt
and bad dick
learn this by 30 for maximum
enjoyment
future
female
conquerors
of a dying planet
black veil
we were
never married
yet somehow
i still became
his widow
