Sonnet With Nostalgia
I lay on the red, tufted couch. The trains came down like blunt comets
From the bridge and went right by the window, shaking the building,
Not even the cat got nervous about anything. Sarah came in with a bag
Full of stolen soaps and creams. Did you want to split a gram, she asked.
I watched television through the saran wrap we'd covered it with the last time
It rained and the water came in everywhere, the arterial bulges in the paint
Swelling then shriveling, and one corner of the bedroom gone all to putty.
Things were fair and good, and this was part of it. I was complete in my unhappiness,
Unhappy when, later, Nick insisted on biking to meet Ike, then never came back,
Passed out on a playground, unknown to us all, we thought probably jail, so I called Sarah.
Let's split that gram, and she was down, though she'd already done one herself, some kpins,
Some dope. I got her first, stuck her fat, perspiring forearm easy in the misty TV glow,
And when I did me, love poured through my body like a spotlight through a scrim,
The entire world ripe at once, the erupting audience, and I was gone.
