[076]
09/20/2010 06:03 p.m.

he's got lists on his walls and springs in his steps,
he do he do. he's a fierce blueness and a fear of losing.
he's repetitive stories because what else has he got,
he's terrified sometimes and it shows.

and he eats apart dead animals in ravenous form,
leaving gristle in halos around his plate. peaking from
beneath his fork, he watches the girl he's unconditionally
committed to spit out the remains of a mussel gone bad.
she'll shiver for the rest of the day about that mussel,
but he doesn't want to hear it.

(mussels gone bad are crunchy on the inside, like the burnt
tendrils of corn husk. they crumble, they crumble and no matter
how much you spit there's probably still bits of it left in the
crevices of your palette).

he's the sort who holds hands only loosely and who grabs on
everywhere else too tightly and who hasn't ever learned a thing
about how to comport himself romantically. he's a bushel of
adverbs and a handful of nouns, he's categorical.