the crescent moon chip of a coffee cup
against your (needlessly)   pursed lips
and suddenly, you taste it-
the iron history of twenty years
of boy
without a hand on your shoulder
epiphany frames the corners of your mouth
pioneering your desert skin
as it clears a trail
for the vandal wrinkles
of your recession
drip-dropping off the edges of the earth
onto new coat and clashing tie
you rush to the sink
the taunting softness of cotton embracing your lips
and you’re hopelessly aware that you could spill truth for hours
and no one would be around to wipe it up
or to carry you off to sleep
or to bleach away the stain
of his god.damn.absence.
you look up, through the mirror
and hear a stranger at the keys
tapping out the same song you thought you wrote
when you were sixteen (a clenching, bluesy number)
about a girl asleep by a payphone
about a boy trapped in a bus stop
about some dumbass kid who burned off all the nerve-endings on his hands one fourth of july
(about the shortest story ever told)
“well baby i went to bed last night” (a louis armstrong voice that sorta swallows you)
“and when i woke up this morning” (decrescendo)
“I Wasn’t.”