Abduction

Thinking about that time you
stepped off the edge of the earth and
I (so long) waited
for you to
come (back) with a
glass full of wine/guitar/heart words,
or mouth full of hot words like bees or
broken glass
or incidentalsentimental words you plucked from the street like
a prize ticket or trash—

basically,

anything at all, but
you (obviously) were
abducted

by your own extraterrestrial logic and, like,
I want to be sofuckingdisgusted,

but I know you never grabbed a clock or map and grabbed instead
tequila, which I like,
and drank
like gasofuckingline, setting fire
to the whole scene, which we liked, and we should have seen
that nothingnothingnothing was quite the way we thought,
and never had to be,

but here we are (nowhere) and you’re still
in outer space, still like quiet water or
dead fire, deadest anything,
too damn dead and still

like your dark eyes in the redlights, ghost deer in the headlights, and
talking to the point of exhaustion and daylight when birdsongs
and sunlight scorch heathen mind and eyes.

And the scarf is torn from the window now, (and not worn) because
it's time to go, to go, to get up and go.

Take the hose back to the station. Sing songs and sleep.
Sleep long and sweet, sleep
long enough to forget
that you were here or
where you went or
why you came at all.

3.21.22