Monday

While you wait for the J train, for work, think
of your new boyfriend, who loves apostrophes,
sizzle-pants, and you.
Who pointed out the "Andrew Lloyd Webber" house

and said his feelings have started to "Escalade."
You'll forgive him for now, smarty pants.
(Your last, the crisp progressive, declawed
his cat to save his Ethan Allen chairs.) Besides,

there's such promise, such furniture and new sex!
Look: Wildflowers bloom in the streetcar tracks;
a syringe lies in the grass. It isn't
beautiful, of course, this life. It is.

Copyright © 2009 Randall Mann All rights reserved
from Subtropics
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission