Please don’t laugh,
but I’m not much of a salesman,
and I absolutely suck at buying new clothes.

There’s little holes in every classic shirt
I’ve ever struggled to find
off the floor of a stranger’s house at seven a.m.
with the kind of headache that murders
character actors by the dozens.

My best pair of pants never quite recovered
from the time I almost drowned in paint.

The other pair suffered horribly from the night
I tried to catch a cab while coming straight down
from the top floor of one of those stupid weddings
where people shoot a thousand fireworks towards the moon
and then laugh when nothing substantial happens.

Sooner or later I’ll know better than to trust
anyone I’ve known for less than an hour promising me
the best time in the long history
of the last sixty seconds.

Either I’m desperately mistaken
about how much time I’ve got left,
or I’m nowhere near as bright as I was in Kindergarten.

Perhaps I’m just a sucker
for a good photo opportunity. I do think as I get older
I take better pictures in which I’ve finally learned to relax
just as the ten o’clock train comes swaggering through
a prayer meeting being held in my honor.

That’s at least part of the problem. A lot of people
are perfectly willing to wish me well. The numbers
dwindle when we start to talk about someone
willing to put their arm around mine in a room
full of drunk drivers and bare-knuckle drama queens.

I might have been one hell of a prize
back in the 70’s. Someone told me that once
shortly before we started another round
of William Tell with a nail gun.

I can’t even remember the last time
someone astonished me with their patience
and quality of life with nothing to gain and plenty to lose.

Because I will drive you nuts. I will call you three times too many.
I will definitely force you to repeat yourself,
and there’s no doubt that at least half of your dearest friends
will either poison my coffee or sell my organs back to Canada.

I’m just saying. I don’t want you to think
it’ll be nearly as fun as the internet
will have you believe.

11/18/2010

Posted on 11/18/2010
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