306

For now, every mistake I made
was better than the right way.
I don't know what you'll do tomorrow
besides the things you do each day,
but for now you're sitting on my living room floor
even though you know that you could leave.

305

I look for the new neighbor
in the morning when I leave.
He used to be a dog walker
and that's all he ever told me.

304

Leave him thinking he could have been brighter,
he could have spent more time wanting you.
Let him lie awake trying to remember your voice
until he wouldn't recognize it if you wanted him to,
if he wanted to,
and he'll be listening for it until he's dead-
you could smooth the lines on his forehead.

303

You refused to leave until the apple was ripe.
I took a bite
and we sat down and by the time it was brown
I wasn't angry anymore.

I think in the kitchen you saw me slouch,
I think you saw me turn young
for a second when the wind blew in a smell
from the outside trees
through the window that had been jammed shut for years.

And instead you left when you looked at me
and realized you weren't in the room.

302

There is a day somewhere
when the rustic lighting in a corner bakery
turns me into exactly you need me to be.

My younger self now just a concept
I never cared to study,
I don't blame you for not waiting.

There is a moment, there's a place
that wouldn't be so bad for us
if we knew when and where it was.

301

I can only recall once
We were both living downtown
when we almost met in the day
but lunch in a cafe I'd heard about.
You've said midnight's your hour
since we were young,
when nights in parked cars
in late coffee houses
and on soft summer lawns
blend to meet us where we are.
It's hard to understand
that you go out to the grocery story
and I don't ever want to run into you there.

300

I knew him in the bar for years,
every few Saturdays and he was always there
when I came and when I left. At first I wouldn't tell him
about my life and my wife and everything
that happened upstairs, in the light
until nothing seemed as real as him and the bar.

When I was older I stopped speaking so much
and enjoyed his enjoying my company.
Never asking him where he lived
and never did he leave before I did.

Ten years of the man in the bar, and one day
I saw him at the park
sitting by the big fountain with a can of Coke
and when he saw me watching him he agreed to look away.

Saturday night at the bar I sat
and told him what my wife said.