It was your penguin pajamas
With the skis & snow shoes on them
Softness, barely fitting past this
And I listen to all of “The Weight Is A Gift”
From guitar wall beginning to trailing off end fall
Until I wash my hands with antibacterial soap two hours later

The blue-eyed, half-eyed cat is catching her paws
Around the thin nothing string of your leftover underwear
Not sure why that was still in your drawer along with the shoelace toy
Guess it’s all that left of a girl & a boy

The DVD’s filled with box shots of the women you look like
In these crazed, upside-down worlds of flesh-eating viruses & spies
When it was those otherworldly places we retire to
A Valley Of Fire sunset with nothing but rolling miles of rock

And all those super-deluxe, fluorescent green bottles with viscous gel
That smell like flowers in a bottle on a shelf
Packed in perfect notebook divider compartments, bottles like art meant
To redefine your everyday drive to Downtown LA & come home to
Trader Joe’s something or other from cans for not me & yes you

Guess it’s all that’s left of a girl & a boy
$26.23 parcel rate postage, some obstinate cat’s fur tucked in or uncovered shampoo
And it’s you who made this calcified, collected these things invisibly from a foreign zip code
Made this thing hardened again, removed the soft center, left it pounding irregular
© Adam Bresson