If I am
are you will
the speed of the spinning
of centrifugal earth
a similar orb
over there
you used to
be pliable
and now hard, aging
we are
flowers in a patch
flowers that smoke
flowers that eat the mulch
of our deceased
predecessors
some sunflowers
that blossom, shine
some crabgrass
destined to feed
the cows
heaving, lurching
toward food and sex
but one day
all fossils-
Echinoidea

he takes a drag
breathes fire
contemplates
a question
the silence is complete
the darkness sliced
with tiny embers

you convinced me
to run away
under the light of
the bridge of anywhere U.S.A.
the fosphorescent glow
on the Hohman little Calumet
filled with soap and silt
and factory shit
we sat looking for hours
at the little box homes of alcoholics
and speed freaks
somewhere close to comfort
but nowhere near salvation
not nearly old enought to know
right from wrong
but somehow we knew
companionship
and where to hang our heads
as the morning dew
collected in the runoff
all the midwest could offer
worlds away from
a nurturing embrace
eyes always on the prize:
returning home.

If in the end,
I ascertain
that some higher understanding
might have been attained,
I will hope that I
might have done so
inadvertently
along the way.

after three days
of bobbing lazily through
fallen limbs
on the Wabash
like discarded corks
after a picnic
our burdens eased
we had a similar thought

after floating along
on our inflatible couch
on the blue rubber inflatable
loveseat
drifting past kayakers and
fisherman and
geese ducking for a catch
we sat dumbstruck
at the thing we both thought of-
unable to express

something about
what it all means
how big it all is
how quickly it goes by

wearing only shorts
wiley eyed and covered in mud
like bugs on a log
floating down the Wabash

If you find yourself
concerned with the brevity of things,
the temporal nature of biology,
(as one often does
while lying awake,
swimming in the bluish sublayer of thought
nestled deep in the mind's eye
suspended aimlessly
between unconciousness and cognition,
sorting through
glimpses of the farthest reaches of our nature)

if you find yourself
lost in the scattered events that we are
subject to assimilate into memory
before surrendering them
and our perception into the void,
like letters to the fire
know this:

a moving heart
is the decisive divider
between us and the squirrels
but the space that we share
the compost, the brick, and the fur,
the glances daringly held,
the things reserved for our deepest comfort,
and alas,
the bodies
that we cannot recall bargaining for-
are of course fleeting

and in defeat
a gasp
and the soul that has propelled us thus far
is exhaled.

Thanks everyone for checking out my poems, and helping me pick some good ones. I sent out my portfolio on Monday to DePaul, so my fingers are crossed! Bye for now-

Matt

If our names are never etched,
on war memorials
museum beneficiary plaques,

are we less honored
in death?

if our loves are never professed
in bathroom stalls
bridges hanging over highways,

do we persist,
in memory alone?

which even after
two or three generations-
a faint breeze,
in mid June.