May & July

May & July 

If I fall in love this week

who is going to feed the cats

           or throw away the toothpaste that’s still got

five or six good uses in it 

        It’s bright in here and I’m done 

        celebrating 

the way my heart beats like everyone else’s 

            I want the windows to be open and the sun

to kiss me like it matters

            or it doesn’t or it wants to 

        see me again

The same gnat’s been in my room

for a month

            flying into my lamp

            trying over and over 

to make light of a single departed remembrance 

        It’s going to kill him soon enough

        and anyway

no one is supposed make light

That’s why the sun’s here

— ODH