The morning after,

the sun was a ball of chrome.

A cigarette’s lit movement

worked like a colon:

a precluding ending;

an opening, full-stop.

The street swept me along

in a haze of close confidence,

 

and the future took a shape

that looked like anything.

The smell of you

was on my hands.

 

My failure to perform—

an act of will I will feel again

and again,

in other beds suited to play

 

more or less than those

of my childhood—

relies on a pink and blue note

written for carelessly.

The dogs had moaned

in their passion to satisfy desire,

and immolated themselves

in an impossibly blue flame—

 

like that flashing in the rearview

inches from my slowly smoking face.