This plane I’m on
is falling to earth,
and I’m still growing.

This train I’m on
is swerving from the track,
and I’m still growing.

This car I’m in
is aimed at the wall,
and I’m still growing. 

The needle
and the hot shot are waiting,
and I’m still growing.

The bullet and the knife
are prepared,
and I’m still growing.

How clogged I’m becoming
from poisonous food.
I’m still growing.

How angry the liver,
how broken the aorta.
I’m still growing.

If I fade into the couch
and stop moving today,
I’ll still be growing

until all the hair and nails
and bones and fat cells and organs
decide to call a strike.

This body is
unfinished business
until it decides otherwise.

From the yoga pants
to the pretty hemp bag,
she’s the very model
of the modern conscious mom;

if we walked together
there would be wonder at how
we’d found each other,
and how the child came to be

because I am anything but
that match you’d expect for her,
and all my fantasies are unnatural
and full of folly;

we don’t pass through the same circles
and a guy like me is the furthest thing
from her mind.  In fact, she’s the furthest thing
from my mind as well; one moment

of wonder does not a crush make. 
I can’t see me being that close
to anyone that clean and honest
in her enthusiasm

for the care and feeding
of family and the rest of the world.
I’m a dirty bird with a bad heart
and a trail of smoke in my mouth

almost all the time.  Women like her
set me to thinking
how I got here, that’s all;
I like where I am, as she must like

where she is.  Any thought
of connection is silly.
Any thought at all that contains
the both of us in it is sillier still.

So I’m headed for the beer aisle
instead of lingering near her,
and that’s a good thing for both of us
and for that kid she’s pushing

in the stroller that costs more
than I make in a week.  I’ve got
my own stuff to do without taking
a single moment to do for another.

Anyway, if we were somehow to meet
I’d probably have to quit smoking
and get a real job, and I imagine
neither of us would like the guy

who’d be left in my skin
once that had happened.
Best to not even entertain
such thoughts.  Best

to pass as ships in broad daylight
with plenty of distance between us.
I don’t even know how I got on this,
and it’s time to let it go.

Re-gifting:

the Christmas tree burned
in a barrel
by six homeless men

who are feeding from
discarded party platters;

earlier, one crumpled up
discarded wrapping
collected from many recycling bins
to insulate the refrigerator box
he’ll sleep in.