Highway 80

In stop and go traffic, suspended above
the layers of pavement and people,
I saw a billboard for Prudential
saying that one in three babies born
today will live to be at least 100. Then
it said prepare for longer retirements. Prepare.
Well, I say, prepare for older workers,
prepare for your grandmother to have
her executive job well into her eighties.
Prepare to be an intern until you're forty.
Prepare for longer periods between promotions,
and more experience expected for entry level jobs.
Prepare for higher unemployment for younger people.
Prepare alright. Prepare not to be able to afford a house
until you've had two midlife crises. Prepare to invest
in prunes and Viagra. Prepare for procreation to be
an ethical debate, like abortion. Prepare for the death panels.
Prepare to hear these questions on mainstream news programs,
as you go to get your drinking water from the vending machine.

Silent Lion

Inspecting each other's hats
to gawk at snowflakes,
standing on Lion Lake
frozen over.

A raven caws.

You make a snow angel.

We venture out onto the center of the lake
following the tracks of squirrels and rabbits.
You hold up a handful of powder
and rub it in my face. Say,
"Welcome to Montana."

My car gets stuck in the snow
just as it gets dark,
so we sit in the car
eat tortilla chips
and make exquisite corpses together

for 3 hours

till your friend shows up in a truck,
yanks me out of the snow with his four-wheel drive,
laughs at me, crazy Chicagoan
what were you thinking?

Back on pavement,
I pull up alongside him
to thank him. He gets out,
walks to the passenger window--
"You two look thirsty"--
and hands us two beers.

Dos Corazones

Morning shines into the matchbox of your studio apartment. 

Exhaust fumes and car horns and traces of Spanish
shout through the blinds.
I am empty beside you.
So is your pack of cigarettes on the nightstand.
You only acknowledge the smokes,
make a quick run across the street,
return with a fresh pack of Lucky Strikes.

For some reason, you decide you aren’t speaking this morning,
so I don’t either.
Sitting up in your bed, I watch
as public protests rage on the TV.
Out of the corner of my eye, you
pull a mini chocolate bar out of your pocket;
open the golden wrapper,
expose two square nuggets with a heart
embossed on the top of each.
You break it in half,
hold a piece out for me.
“Tomá.” (“Take it,”)
you say.  
When I accept,
you toss your portion onto the table,
tear the plastic off the cigarette pack with your teeth.

I place the square on my tongue
the heart facing down.
It is a branding iron.
The burlap skin of my back still burns with
the square grids of bathroom floor tiles
from last night’s drunken fuck.
How did I end up returning to you?
Again?
These Venn diagrammed hearts
arm wrestle in my chest:
the backhand of my heart that knows better
is dangerously close to touching down.
Public protests on the TV
make courage look so easy.
I search for affection in the blue life preservers of your irises.
You tell me to get up so you can make the bed.
You are both a good joke and a bad one,
admirable for your honestly and despicable for your selfishness.
You are both an architect and a wrecking ball.
I am both rebuilding and carving a pair of initials into the rubble.

These Venn diagrammed hearts!
On one side, there is a broken window with a hole
shaped like a woman jumping;
on the other, there is a jumping woman with a hole
shaped like a broken window;
in the middle is a woman,
double bolting the locks of her shudder-
frame lips.

Wrapped up in your crimson robe,
in your matchbox apartment,
I hear shouting.
Don’t you?
Don’t you hear it?   

Leather Chair

We dragged this black leather chair from the dumpster and up the stairs, its three wheels ringing each wood step's retreat.One wheel was stubbed,  but we Captain-Hooked it a patchy Wilson tennis ball.
Soon its back was scratched up by climbing cats.
More than it ever used to its ball bearings swoon to the weight of a body,
fit storage space only for books and folded blankets.