“The brave vests made from soapboxes keep the band in arrears. A tress of rope swung lower than ever. This day of all days to meet spent packs of matches in the park. Low is me. Rattail soup’s getting cold, and there’ll be only Warty Angler pie for dessert. Sides are gone. Leaping’s made for arms without hands, or churches. Nobody’s getting outmuscled by any of it. That’s another “no more” to coincide with. Lowercase gratitude prevails. People’s sympathy only extends so far and for so long. Everything’s a copout at some point. Reveal and revel. Hush and be hurt. It will be a sum that’s less than great, always. A rush on seaweed wreaths and holy saltwater. Dogs in the detritus. Seagulls in the garbage bags. Nobody’s piling away silver in a garret. A horse drunk on bilge water, drinking itself to death, or it’ll die trying. Lullabies filled with cussing and cigar smoke. The hike of a blouse and the ankles are bared for all to write off or take on back home. Never to be carried over any threshold or given a ring made out of a spoon. There will be dead pigeons in the swimming pool and cats in the alley scraping up a living like the rest of us. You’ll miss all the same things once it’s all gone and changed for good’s worse. Every then and again you’ll stick around, only to find that the rain don’t come around as much as it should, and the streetlights are too bright for kissing. Let’s pretend were mockingbirds and shoot marbles in the gutter. Pass the prayers on over here. We could use a few more for the night. Nothing to keep you warm in the big-old lonely disaster that you call being alive. Nothing’s right. Nothing’s okay. The moon can’t outshine the TV’s light. Growing disasters like weeds. There will be heart attacks in the basement and new wallpaper along the stairway. Tonight’s shot. We need heroes and hamburgers. Perhaps a bottle of later-evening to go with the afternoon’s dash and dip. Feed the parakeets animal crackers and get a one-way ticket to next year. So long. So bad. So absolutely ravaged to all hell and cranky and devastated almost all the time. Jesus Christ, I can’t help myself. It’s just that time of the season. God’s name in the microwave’s light. Another necktie gone. And we need bravery like we need blue’s ruin and a carload of hitchhikers. Mover over oblivion, I’m taking names just to give them all away. Rip the cord from the parachute. Get yourself up a tree, Jack. A rained-out campfire. A lost cat. We all marble the sky with our latest misery. But I never sob in town, and my umbrella’s filled with holes. It’s all a Times Square billboard dropped on your head. I give up. I’m finished, through. So, so long. I will be up on the roof counting shingles and trying to stay put until further notice.”
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