how does one discuss the "how of be-ing"
old friend across the sea - how does one
describe the drowning as one walks in the
office to see the same faces, the same story
another time and perhaps it would be funny
another time and it was funny but how many
times must i discuss why my tattoo encircling
my ankle is the way it is: in truth it is because
my old friend, in now san francisco, said he was
shattered: he said this to me in third grade, i
thought it was because his mother wrote books
and raised chickens, and his dad, a professor,
had many young encounters: my old friend was
privy too and wrote me too often: when we sat
in the hall and said goodbye to each other during
our first year of high school for summer we knew
something was amidst:
our kiss (should've had the beauty of a first kiss) was flat:
yet in each
letter i drew my
disconnected stick of a man
