By Charles Clifford Brooks III
In a blue button down, sweating in August,
the memory of a woman or religion,
(or both) were fading. He feels new.
Scars running towards
the heart are hardly hidden. Words
burn with
the smell of bourbon.
…
I imagine we’d have
met under other circumstances,
in-person,
pretty sure I’d be smoking.
It would bother you then.
You’d pretend it didn’t. There’d be a conversation,
later.
I’d never look at your breasts
while we spoke,
especially when it looked
like you weren’t paying attention.
That’s a trick.
…
Night ends the droll, cracked movie reels
devouring the present. Deep, deep, deep in the current
of uncertainty,
Do you feel that?
The years have worn our bones.
It’s time.
It’s time.
A man who wears twenty-year-old
jeans, brown boots, stopping every
ten steps to snap your panties
will also
slip a Davidoff.
We’ll work on that.
Clutching at Straws 