Next morning
It’s the next morning
Still half drunk from two $9 bottles of wine
I left the liquor store with a brown bag supply
about the same time I woke up today
How many failed husbands
waiting at that register
How many scorned wives
The sun has come around again
on us all
I’m lying naked on the electric blanket
set to lukewarm
listening to live applause from a music hall
recorded four years
before I was born
Earlier
a woman left a painting on my doorstep
with a note attached to the back
But I slept through it
Luckily it didn’t blow away like a leaf
I brought it inside
faced it backward
toward the wall
without looking at the art
My days of racehorse running
feel like they’ve come to an end
Blinds rolled up to the ceiling
keep me safe from the death of the day
Someone will find me here
someday
“Man, alone in his room”
a painting of its own
Words fresh on my lips
tongue still forming the consonants and vowels
My scale won’t matter then
Neither will my wardrobe
My poems
Or the smile I paid for
About the author