Driving to Providence sounds too mundane,
evoking clipped-winged angels feeding tickets through turnstiles.

I philosophize as I fill my tank.
I wonder which of these words will be the first to be forgotten.

At the gas station register waits Saint Peter;
he frowns at my Red Bull, marks his ledger.
declares,

“here is the punishment humanity deserves
for intimating hints of heaven on Earth:
disappointment in dissonance
when cities fail to embody their namesakes.”

Walking through Providence (better, better),
the late winter wind reddens my skin.
I swear I was promised I’d need no jacket,
yet cannot recall the prophet — perhaps I imagined.

I duck into a cafe for temporary salvation.
Clipped-winged angels serve me coffee and doughnuts;
the lemon-matcha old-fashioned is a revelation.
All, forever, for now, is forgiven.

It does not take a poet to explain — especially,
on this the day of flowers and chocolates —
love is momentous.

(The world groans its agreement
and carries on.)

What this poet wrote and meant, emphatically:
love is momentum.
Thoughtless indifference
until a gentle slope gives speed
to what internal fixtures we forgot may move.

If the magazine could please republish this less-trite truism,
I am sure your readers would rejoice in its novelty.
Nod over their coffees
at their loves, growing, even now, in force
or slowing,
equally
imperceptibly,
until we are alone
in the resultant stillness
of erstwhile impetus.

My great-uncle Mario was a technophile until the day he died,
and he did die somewhat young — somewhat tragic how men become
only names to ignorant children, resurrected by seance of family and photograph
on Christian holidays, when such miracles are commonplace.

I have no memory of meeting him, though we did meet, and I’m sure
he doted and delighted in the precociousness of his young great-nephew.

I have vivid memories, thereafter, of visiting my great-aunt Frances
in their cramped, second-story apartment, narrow stairs leading
into a cluttered — though not untidy — living room, a homely hoard
resplendent with the humble treasures that a life of living affords.

My parents and Frances would reminisce in the kitchen
while us layabout children watched old comedies on video cassette.
Forgive us — it is difficult to reminisce at 6 or 8 or even 10,
before we can properly shoulder and stoop beneath the burden of absence.

Video cassette!
It must have been cutting-edge the day Mario lugged the VHS player
up the narrow stairs. He likely kissed his wife in celebration, and toasted
to the many years that remained to them together on this planet.

I don’t know why I feel the need to employ ham-fisted tragic irony.
You need no reminder we all die. Some wives are left draped in magnetic tape
when their husbands pass; some husbands are left with the paintings
that drew Frances’s grieving great-nephew’s eye.

It depicts a woman playing a small, stringed instrument — perhaps a lute.
My mother objected to inheriting the large and likely tacky portrait,
but to me it felt appropriate. In lieu of Mario, it was the musician waiting
over Fran’s shoulder, greeting my family from atop the narrow stairs.

Months ago, I was visiting my father in my childhood home, in the basement
retrieving laundry, when I saw the woman with her lute leant against a concrete wall,
her face downcast and doubly shrouded in brushed and subterranean shadow.

“Hmm,” I observed, and climbed the cluttered, basement stairs.

This coffee table is exactly what i needed
to vacate my mind of items not this coffee table.
Henceforth, I will consider only what to rest
upon it, what to stow beneath it, how to extricate
the Roomba from the prison of its undercarriage.

The possibilities are endless. The possibilities —
ok — are not endless. I may someday grow bored
with this fake wood, already peeling, with its espresso
finish, different in color, somehow, than my other
espresso furniture. Is there a goddamn governing

body that could please coordinate the shades
and sheen of stain applied to this cheap fucking
particle board? My god. I didn’t need this. I was fine
resting my feet on the pleather ottoman. I was fine
resting coffees on the ugly square I purchased

from Amazon for twenty dollars during the Mesozoic
era of my adulthood — a lie. I was already ancient
watching the arc of the cold comet — happy, in fact,
for the cold comet, feeling for the first and only time
the warm embrace of atmosphere traversed too quickly.

Do not remain center stage.
Any teacher returning to the auditorium
to recover a misplaced 3-ring binder
will see you. I know this may seem evident,
but I’ve witnessed overeager friends
spotlighted in mortifying states of undress —
which should come as no surprise to you lovers
of thespian pursuits.
Drama thrives on such pathetic incident.

Instead, exit stage left,
to the pretense of seclusion
of the chain link prop room,
where you sometimes-sympathetic villains,
torrents of hormones,
unfortunate haircuts painstakingly styled
over fledgling synapses firing like starbursts,
escape
for a blissful thirty-nine minutes
from the Charlie Brown drone of academic prison.

Sigh relief.
Kiss your girlfriend,
finally.

Caress her small breasts through her favorite striped shirt.
Jest you’ll be back soon
and for her to not miss you
too much.
Descend your contrary being
perpendicular to jailbird green
stripes. Cross each
with the tip of your nose (by a mile,
most meaningful of vain rebellions).

Take off your girlfriend’s jeans,
then her panties —
separately.
Just because you’re lying
in precariously secluded wings
of intermitted stages
doesn’t mean you can skip the pleasantries,
doesn’t mean she shouldn’t feel your fingers
trace the bones of her hips, your breath dance
playful whirls along inner thighs.
“How was your day?” ask her softest flesh
and, unconcerned with the answer, promise,
“about
to be
better.”

Kiss your girlfriend
everywhere she begs
for kisses.

Catch and hold each other’s breath.

Wait silently for the vice principal
to escort chastened friends from center stage.
Stare into wanting eyes and smile.
Nuzzle from temple to cheek
to temple. Whisper a truth so secret
none present comprehend its meaning.
Nibble on her earlobe
like an iron-spined god of mischief.

Don’t dare slip back into pants.
The wriggling would draw attention,
and besides, after the principal leaves,
your haven will be restored for a while,
so stare, and smile, and hope,
and hope,
and hope…

On the drive home, cry.
Not out of happiness, nor sadness, nor any emotion
your shoddily-wired, adolescent brain could dream
of parsing. Cry
because you are no longer proximate,
and where you long to be with her does not exist,
not now or ever,
not even in fantasy.

Scientists are just now understanding
the importance of gut fauna
to us bumbling behemoths –
the world needs symbiotes
dressed in the worn white collars of parasites
to sit silent and consume
while the bar patrons conversate
beautiful stories about provincial retreats
along the coasts of Maine –
the world needs ironists
to transcribe and demure –
and sip
and demure –
actually,
the world needs consumers –
actually,
depending on our definition
(huzzah, harrumph, etc.),
the world needs all
or none of these.

i heard buzzing from over my shoulder,
put down my pen and stared
at the light fixture
feeling territorial, feeling feline.
i jumped to test my lazy legs,
touched the ceiling once, twice.

i waited, both silent now.
too late for the smaller silence.

i crushed it with a magazine
(a beetle, an Esquire),
the yellow stain of entrails bylining
a short story by Mary-Louise Parker
(the cover bylined prior by a prior beetle).

i hit it once more on the floor.
mercy, or,
“and stay out.”

i tore the page and read
her beautiful vignette.
her entrails intermingled with the insect’s.

i returned to my deskchair,
legs spry for murder now unsure.
i doubt the creature would have endorsed this end,
but it has the loveliest epitaph of a coffin.

dim lights. loosen garments.
posture poorly.
recline.
recline more.
supine?
recline less.
reject sleep like we used to when stakes were low.
stakes are still low.
they are so low!
you are walking on train tracks
(you are not a train).
they will tell us we are trains
(we are not trains).
they will issue us headlamps and magnet shoes.
relax.
obtuse angles.
hang headlamps from rafters,
spotlight sofas and sprawl
like Tennessee Williams players.
swill gins. sip tonics.
believe wholly in notions requiring no allegiance,
convictions quiet and internal,
secrets atria whisper to ventricles
between beats.
listen:
hushes
content, but eager.
emulate the apotheosis of our constituent parts.
our best selves are skeletons aspiring to skin.