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I’d be a stupid paperboy
if her house was on my route
I’d stop writing poems about women
if-
shit
I don’t know an “if”

I told my friend
I’d try and write
about something else
other than past halos
women with soft
hands
rough hands

here’s a poem, friend
–
–
axes cut, bit down
the tree line between
my apartment and the road
they let me see
the joggers and the families
pushing strollers and tightening
their sweatbands, adjusting
their headphones
all those busy families
and girls thinking
and boys thinking
it’s time to run
in the rain
it doesn’t stop raining here
so what do they want?
a new night not taken over
by humid rain and fat insects
we don’t have those here

with enough whiskey
the trees don’t stop moving
the joggers don’t stop running
I can’t stop watching them
I’m going to ask one
what he - she thinks about
while they’re swallowing rain
and fixing their headphones

I throw bottles
at the road
sometimes when I can’t
stand to smoke anymore

all I want now is a good poem
not about women but about
nature and the way the vines
suck up into the trees
and tear out leaves
when it rains hard

–
–

that’s a poem