
poem of a dead songTea rings on tables glisten like constellationspoem of a dead song by ~part-fly
and cigarettes unfurl regrets
in the nostalgic serenade of morning.
The record player sings it wrong but it’s okay, we know,
we heard, sadness is a metaphor of spiritual ignorance
or pluralistic degredence, whatever. Same thing,
because no matter the cause it’s the same prognosis,
condemned to the soft haze of melancholy as it sings like steam,
but the teas cold and veins jut out like splintered satellites.
A world grows outside my window,
a box garden, and children replay the daydreams
of every lost childhood and mine before them,
and the universe sticks to the soles of shoes like gum,
spit litter from the mouth of some vapid face
but I sit here, aching to reply to a sentence
I think I have heard but haven’t quite
understood.