The secondhand iron floor lamp you rewired
and scrounged up a hat for; tattered, slatting
the light. Keep and contain me, while good
me gazes back, full of buffed grace, from the polished
convexity of a hip flask. Wide, wide smile.
I bounce off that and stay in my cave.
A checkered past has proved the worst teacher
I’ve grumped under since that bitter Chapel Hill
alumnus in grade ten English. I try. So what’s this Durex
doing in the mickey pocket of my collar-up
Camus overcoat? Who among us isn’t weakened
to see even our wardrobe’s a quote?
But when I crawl into the weirdly
habitable Arctic your form makes of the white duvet,
I’m naked, and naked, and not alone.
Today, the pigeon-cacked sill outside sat battered
in autumn light, hard, aslant; specks in the lintel
glinting. It all looked genuinely . . . something.
I’ll quote you, in full, to all the young hopefuls
still in me, then take another loving run
at these padded walls we edged and rolled together.