When I hear the word sandwich, sometimes
I think of myself being stuck between two
people on the subway and not knowing
which of them keeps farting because neither
has lifted their leg or made any indication
that they were the flatulent train rider

I don’t know how long it was
between your second-to-last
breath and your last breath,
but I know that time receded
and I was a hologram of myself
in a dirty underhang of despair

Open mouths gargling over
each other at the holiday party
inside a franchised golf simulator

Nothing can ruin a beautiful
fall day more than a heaping
spoonful of generalized anxiety

But distance strings us out on the
end of what used to be a corded
phone line, and we react when pinged
to the evermore of each person’s
discombobulated happenstance

But there was something in all those
crumpled papers that found their
way to all sides of the waste basket
and I think that something was
honesty

Sometimes you have to
fold in on yourself and
curl into a small ball
in an oversized blanket
and just sleep into it

The cold side of the pillow
is only a reminder of the
choices I continue to make
that suit where I am at
this point in my life as
an older gentleman
who is much more
comfortable in the cold

Just because they can fly
doesn’t mean they will fly
away into the clouds above
leaving us holding their perch

We walk so gingerly
over the loose tiles
of our evolving lives
that we fail to put
the right amount
of force or pressure
on the balls of our
feet to notice how
imbalanced we are

I want you to blow through me
to match the coldness I hold
inside of this aging, weary body
held together by years of love

Weekends are time to
peddle softly into a
wide open field of grass

Unmade beds mirror
mussed morning hair
and rumpled sheets

I don’t know where I fall
as I watch myself idle
through life with that
weighted vest you saw
on Amazon on my back

My breath continues strong,
refreshed by a long walk
and propelled by the thrill
of parenting while parentless
because you can have one
without the other, and it’s
all I ever wanted to have

A slow breeze glances
your hand dipping into
the blades beside you
and time opens up

I spend most days leaping
from one box to another,
making sure not to fall
into the blank spaces
that separate me from
the rest of the world

So, I lay down on a chaise
with a book of fiction
to imbibe someone else’s
life of bold grandeur
inside my inactivity

It knows more than us,
but is still artificial
and anonymous
If we allow it to
be autonomous
we will be left
pounding salt

I walk aimlessly
to drumbeat my
inexorable grief
and I always end
up back where I
started; home

But sometimes, if we
allow ourselves to break
free from our dock,
the open sea is all
we need to find the
courage to swim free

It’s strange to look for
some kind of solace
in a puddle outside of
a nondescript building
on any road in this
city of wayward fog
and capsized humans