Coalescing

The evidence is coalescing.
Fear of the real word. Yes,
but— People with guns, people
doing terrible things in public.

Skinny-dip and the dress gets wet
anyway. And it is made of tulle
and once white silk, it is a night
gown, really. While you are

swimming it is singing and
still getting more damp, and
that medicine is what God does.
You and I are like a palsy that

takes hold of the legs. So that
when exiting the water and
and getting wet in the discarded
dress, stands on a wet rock that

is overlooking the dark water,
someone still swimming in it
possibly, knees feel drugged,
ankles are noticeably thinner.

the Jonsing

Today I saw you older

and I still love you, thought

that I wouldn't, did. Less

in your face, always a

nascent anorexic. Grew

over a life since then and left

this. Color can no longer

hide your white hair, given it up.

And you're deathly thin and I

like it. Less between us, simple

new shapes of your limbs, joints,

the small of your back swoops flat,

and I am a monumental disaster,

I burned a hole through the carpet

by being slow-witted. I'll grow

Roman ringlets, eat better, eat

less. The Jonses are disappearing,

and you and me are like that,

we are like that one over there.

Swelling

I have no authority in that direction.

A handful of change, no reason

for holding it, nothing to buy with it,

not even enough change to buy with.

Other change ills, like when you stopped

being an alcoholic and our conversations

went to complete shit. You, not having

chaos and the balls then to use it. Fuck.

The good things go so readily, but

don't they? The God-given right

to compose novels of the lost Christ

which is all of us, sometimes. Odd,

how the hair still stands up, my unwilling

it, and that Patenson (whether right or not)

in an affectation lost, stays still, watches

"Alien," maybe, or "Alien: Resurrection"

because he is working his way through

french cinema, and can't stand it.

Considers cigarettes, regardlessly

unfulfilling and counts quarters

he would need to buy a new pack.

Because (though not inconsiderable)

a quarter seems not much to ask

of a friend, when in that state.