Goddamn Universe

I wanted to live
in this junk drawer
of a city with you
among the pyramids
and piles of ripped up
rebar like wads of hair
from a bristle brush
beside the Mississippi.
A rehabilitation of pigtails
in the constant twilight
of a motel room.
A Sudafed with your
cold brew. I will feel out
how impressive
I want to be today.
Tennessee is a hallway
stretching between
the lottery numbers
in a gas station
and sprays of redbud trees
in some unmarked canyon.
It's important to be honest.
It's important to be
emotional. I'm sorry
if I was bullshitting you
before. I have measured out
my life in Cook Out trays,
the synth in the middle
called insane glory,
the wisteria piled
all over everything
like a beautiful rash
and knowing which NASCAR
drivers died of AIDS.
Life is a rental.
Bad idea in cowboy boots.
You can be a hinge
in the door of reality
and give up
on significance
but I wanted
to write something
so full it felt empty,
an ornate bowl from the past
filled with nothing
but what happened.
I wanted everyone
to tap me in the chest
with the back of a hand
to say goodbye
like men do.
I wanted you to know
I loved you the way
a concrete wall loves
the color of the sky at dusk.
I loved you when you cried
while you sang. It was as easy
as Sunday morning leaving Athens
where we stayed up
eating curry with the hardcore
band and shouting
about Defiance, Ohio.
It was as hard
as the wet, blue linoleum
illuminated by the storm light
in Knoxville. It was invisible
until you couldn't miss it
like the black dog
in the black night
you hit with your ex
wife's car. It was that time
of day when even the pebbles
have shadows. It was a lot of things
and it couldn't save us,
not even sympathetic magic
or rainbow flag decals,
summer looming
over the ocean
smelling like peaches
rotting off the branch
and never ending.
I would have crossed
state lines for less.