Wagon
I’ve fallen off the most socially appropriate option:
A once-willing drinker–one, two, a few.
Saturdays of glass, an un-checkered stalemate, is nothing like
discovering your unconscious mind is staging a silent revolt.
You learn how fast two people are a multicar pileup on the lookout for changelessness.
I swear that we’re not born until we note our place with bookmarkers.
That measure we’ve shared, and the ticket seats are
numbered in otters, Duke Ellington, and convocation credits.
Head races, slow hand. Ears roar, tongue quiets.
I swear that I am made of comparative normalcy, of the things you need to pack.
Trust me, Mr. Benjamin, you are pretty much a hit
–my first attempt–
but the way you choose to look at me soothes unsettlingly.
So I could run strange figures in the planbook,
driving to the heat back in California, but there’s not actually a city named Paradise.
The blood lets greyer now, though the bow tie stands forth.
After all, a soothsayer bids I still fit into that old profile.
[Learn more about Out of Sequence: The Sonnets Remixed here.]