Listen, Leo

The poem

Listen, Leo, remember the lifeboat we pilfered from what you said was an abandoned garage sale,

1442 Columbus, not the explorer, the street? Last night I came to, retired to the basement to ponder

my position on circumspection, the fate of the cruel & unusual, & drink until I passed out.

I had my underwear on & my .45. I was planning to feast on that bag of Chicken Shack backs & beaks

we got at the place that went broke, put my legs up on a six-pack & drift. Anyway, this eerie glow started

emanating from the sewage pool, mostly greenish. It winked so I shot it, Leo, I've had enough!

Then this long low lump along the wall near the bulkhead started toward me, so slow

I had time to think. Went to the attic & came back down bearing Mr. Double-Aught.

Leo, I perforated the lifeboat. It has become a dead one, incapable, now, of surfacing

above its circumstance. We can never return to it now. It's gone. Gone like the snow.

Gone like I got a little behind. It's a sad world, Leo, we fell, like yesterday's laundry

into the tub, let's face a fact. There's nobody left like us. I got a weathered pate, you

got a ticket to Nova Scotia & I'm swimming beside the boat. When we gotta die, we're gone.

Leo, I confess, I adore your face. Give me a little papa kiss. Give me a muscle up. Leo,

there's nobody left like us.