It’s all in your head, the articles say,
your life slanting at weird afternoon angles
against which you bump your head. Then the sudden bloom,
a second spring, and your noggin swells like interest rates.
It’s not easy to live like this, but it’s doable.
A friend stops by. He’s sad, so you buy him a beer
and he tells you some things.
Then he gets on a train and leaves town for a while,
but it’s still summer, there are people out.
Some of them are pretty, their skin tanned.
They’re sweating – as are you – as if greasing their way
through popsicle season. In tongue-bath weather,
couples drive out to the country to hold hands.
It’s not that I’m lonely, your friend had said,
but the hayloft of his brain behaves otherwise.