"When I was sixteen
I was hornier ‘n six minks in a mail sack.
At twenty-one I learned how to let ’em out one at a time
and make it last all night long.
‘Slammin’ Johnny,’ the women called me
and I bet you can guess why.
At thirty they started to die off.
At forty, I slept alone more often than not
with the bag just stirring now and then.
Now I’m old as the dirty dozen
and I wouldn’t know a mink if one bit me,
but a body next to mine keeps me warm
so I make the effort once in a while.
There are times when it’s enough
to know that if I wake up next morning,
it won’t be alone.  And if I don’t wake up,
maybe it’ll mean something to whoever’s
lying there.  Maybe they’ll remember me
for a week or two after they get over the shock.

"You know, ‘The Dirty Dozen’ was a great movie.  All those ugly guys
making people watch them.  I was ugly as any of them
but I wasn’t famous. I had to make do
with that bag of minks and a reputation
for taming them.  I can’t say I was ever in love
with that.  I always liked the idea of that movie more
than any other — ugly guys banging away
and getting it done when no one else could.
Maybe I should have watched more movies.
Maybe I missed something.

"Ah, you could spend all night listening to me say, ‘maybe.’
Maybe that’s what you want.  I dunno.
I can’t tell you shit about women.  I useta think
I could, but I can’t.  I useta think it was love
when it was just me jumping off and on till I was done,
and done felt good enough to make me think it was love,
but it never lasted.  But I ain’t complainin’. I’ve had it good.
Maybe that’s why I’m here tonight, and not cold in some grave
already.  Maybe that doesn’t cut it for everyone,
but it’s how it was, and how it is.  Now,
you wanna buy me a beer
and stop asking me so many questions?
I gotta bed upstairs that’s calling my name."

I have seen more sunrises
while falling asleep than I ever wanted,
closing my eyes to blood seeping back
into gray skin and charcoal sky.

I’ve held my own hand
just to know it still could grasp
another.

I lived so long
on a patch of cloth
on a worn couch
or in a cracking leather chair
that I forgot what eye level
was like.  I looked up at anyone
talking to me because down
is where I did my best work,
my only work.

I couldn’t say a good word
about myself
without imagining
how it would sound in
another person’s mouth,
and I couldn’t get it right.
My spit tasted
of dust bowls
and cedar splinters
driven into skulls
by tornadoes, and I couldn’t help
swallowing.

On the nights when
I did see the sunrise,
I never warmed up.
I welcomed
snow and rain in the morning, better still
if it rained into snow
and everything became deep slush.
That was the only time
I felt like I fit, when everyone was
as cold and sodden as I was,
when the steel shade of the outside world
looked like home.

I look at all that now
in the mornings when I rise
to the sun falling lukewarm
upon the ice outside,
and I can see
how water is still running down the street,
but now,
it’s from the melting.

the ferret
pours through holes so small
water could only seep through
if it found them. when it’s time to sleep,

she sleeps. when it’s time to eat, she eats.
every detail delights her just long enough
to send a shiver up her tuby body,
and then it passes.

she’s the perfect stoner’s pet
with a thousand ideas and urges
in the course of a minute.
you could watch one not-thinking for hours.

too many nips on my toe and she gets caged.
she always eats and drinks then.
I wonder if it’s strategy
and not punishment at work…

nah, she loves being out too much.
lots of things to do.
places to see. worlds to discover
and rediscover.

an exacting enactment
of life in the moment.
I sit on the couch
for hours, just watching her.