To That One Girl

Well it's blue old 12:24 a.m. and the sun is bright 

somewhere not 

here and I think I’ve struck the right balance of ennui

and sleepiness to sit

here on a comforter and write you

a poem. The words so far seem to do

what I tell them, mostly,

which is a strict prerequisite for a poem so lets be quick about it 

and start. You are loud and happy and laugh 

loud and i like it, to melt into your laughing. Some mornings when the cars

are just slippers for groggy clouds dragging their feet,

I lay back through layered months

to that time, not unlike 12:24 a.m. when

our minds drifted on the night and were water-

bugs on skins of purple-dyed milk. And I think wow

what was I thinking not

being next to you more, more, and more till

days had become air? I don’t know

but knowing is no prerequisite for thinking like words

are for this poem, so I’ll do it, (think), 

for a long time, and make pizzas without anchovies

and float on rivers with straw in my mouth

the way Huckleberry Finn would

or like the farmers in those old movies.

I’ll think how fallen trees hurt my a*s

to sit on too long and how sunsets

should always be purple, with maybe orange

and a fizz of red flecking, noticed only after dissecting carefully

every ray.  I’ll think of the time gathered now

in my hands, how my palms 

sweat and time slips off slowly and tells 

me ‘hey tomorrow became yesterday, get your act together.’

and I’ll say to time ‘hey you’re no boss of mine i can just 

let this all go and forget about you, you dictator, you

a*****e never letting me talk 

things through like men do or Clint Eastwood.’

And after all that tired thinking, 

I’ll stick a finger in my ear

to gauge exactly how crazy I am, and I'll tell you

I should very much like

to take you to dinner, and not a movie,

since movies are dark and broken and plus

I’d rather talk not listen to mannequins dressed in sterile clothing

and speaking with humphrey bogart's voice. 

And luckily its easy to write

soul-things like this since you

are far away and might not read them but

maybe I’ll fold a paper version up in August and vanish it

into the mail or find your door somewhere

and then our smiles might again make the world’s easiest

jigsaw puzzle.