Vincent Colistro
Michelle exists, Japan exists, dogs exist
therefore I’ll never commit suicide,
therefore all the mutt-dun lamps leading
east into town, casting doubt on the pleats
of my new pants, freeze as we saunter
past. What terrifying eyes in the window
of the fudge shop they blue. Surely sushi
glistens in Borneo, as sure as I am sheep
bah’d for Stalin once or twice, when in his
quaint Georgia town they ate of brassicas.
I try my schtick for Michelle, the one where
I’m a vampire cosplaying a Midwestern boy
but the boy betrays my own indignance
I feel being me. Let me get born a lover
of the outdoors, hey, if only for a while.
I shake a weighty willow for its 5 dollar bill
and the bill falls, in Fall, and buys us bus fare.
I can take us where our friend flew off the handle
one night and declared her life a mulligan,
adored a world un-her and unaware
she herself lost a good one that day.
I wouldn’t for all the plum flowers in Chinatown
do it, not for the night bus to the end
of the night, not for the fuss I cause you
on occasion. It was here, I was so bashful
holding the world in your breast I turned
the radio full blast. As if all experience could
coincide to make us less and more alive.