For Days

The ex-lover of my ex-lover got me drunk.
Probably a subconscious/completely
conscious ploy by the bastard
to return her to her other,
to the rain-retreater, to the salt-miner,
to the terribly handsome stick,
to my toy piano fingers,
to the rock of my night, to me.
When truth entered the room,
barking and delirious,
people told me to let truth stay.
But the fucker was biting me
and that is not the way
I like to spend my Saturday.
So I shuffled off the stoop
of the room, pursued by a mood
killing diplomat, in full fanfare,
sweating and serious and
far too drunk for a night with me.
I threw my keys. Missed his knees.
And when when you came up,
and smudged my white shirt
with your eye-makeup,
I could not believe
that I, the stick,
had given you up.
The promise made its way
from the cup to our mouths,
and the seal was unbroken,
some of the bad undone.
In and out of my playground dreams,
washed with salt and the sun,
I just listened to your breathing:
light like the sleep of a baby.