Hothouse

first day bringing a gun to chekhov’s party, & 
here i am in the rose colored coat, here i am with old 
stomping boots, lines of cheer on my good natured 
face–look, today i am growing old, today i am in a room full of 
people, today i love them & they love me too. 

there is no lost job, lost dog, lost house, lost wife, spilt milk, split lip, blacks of your eyes rolling out, 

bucking up, foam on your lips, milk light of the
moon pooling on the floor, no gun, no pills, no lost dog, no lost life 
though the rug is sure to go sour in the summer stale tomorrow 
that is a grief for tomorrow, when the sun has risen 
 yields nothing for us at all. no suicide, no i will not marry you. 
take my bright dancing jacket, your lips already blue. 
we’ll dance & sing & bet on thirty more 
& there it goes! thirty more perfect years! & the new liquor store & the waning august sun 
& our new dog & our perfect aging grace. 

darling, you look fantastic. the dark moving dark. 

tonight we’ll turn the music up so loud, we’ll never even hear the light retreating from every 
corner, the night slamming closed like a loaded gun.