Recessional

For three years we perfected vanishing in

the doorways of friends, sexy as two blue lips.

Lovely Laura‚ voice waned bottleneck slide‚

perched shirtless on my oak bureau‚ knees lilting

downbeat to the subterranean thump and pyrotechnic

acid-warble of Sly’s Family Stone‚ you are now

too often eroded past. Tongues fumbled in that

divorce refinery doubling as our apartment complex.

Shady Dearest‚ whenever you touched my wrists‚

magnolias blossomed phosphorous over driveways‚

the neighbors lost hubcaps. You made me feel

like a film—chromatic and racy‚ well-paced until

the bunk finale when a stranger lustfully sighs near

the jukebox. I couldn’t name it. Leaving‚ you said

“Mourning Is Easy and Poisonous” sounds right.