Keep me reticent
Like snow flurry threats
jettisoned from Starbucks
handshakes
Thirty thousand feet
up
When epileptic
fluorescent lights in stair-
wells
give up, because I am nursing the candle’s
waning spirits with
the last
of the bourbon
My fantasy: Edison
met us in Starbucks,
married us
in Florida
Although I wasn’t white
or, because
I wasn’t white
How, though, can
I possibly
darken the veins and
arteries
of cities I have no
permission to slice
open,
or be expected
to consider poverty without my
sunglasses?
Soften
your fabrics,
bold; surround yourself with
brighter whites;
forget why my
teeth catch eyes
but
not sunlight
Compromise, as
complex and unnecessary
as my drink order
Milk substitute
No more fat
Or even, ultimately,
coffee
Just my dead child’s
name
mistakenly
scrawled across the skin
of a white
cup that
kills the environment twenty percent less
than before
Espresso is for revisiting
mistakes
I won’t
attempt to avoid
repeating
My T-shirt
interior
sends
your skin a cocktail
I address sky-
lines from the
window, pondering
an antichrist and my choice
of detergent.
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