in Renegade, still jotting-down
notes but also checking out
other things,
like emotions.
Disdain, remorse, guilt
suspicion-
the Jersey-jacket patches
of an Outsider-hood-
were all I knew.
Only window-screen allotments
of happiness:
The lone-fly trapped inside
during the steamy, garbage
days of summer.
It was one big training-day,
my encounter w/ you.
I needed to experience joy
completely after having
roomed w/ its black-sheep
cousins for years.
You saw me a few notches
above my worse: Perhaps, shackled
in front of a county-judge,
beer & vomit pushin’ minty
out of my breath, hair
like a sea anemone; or
throwin’ my beer against
a tavern wall because of some
dumb triviality, thus
ruining all pro-karoake goals,
were the bottom contenders.
You, the Raging Bull daughter,
with your split lips, banana-bruised
eyes, scabbed-nose, and shoving
your gloves into the floor
like a mad-gorilla protecting
her kids, called me-
the Busch- bloated, Next Gen engineer
w/ stolen bug helmet- back.
And the moment you said-
in that Taliban cave-bar, a few nights later,
X-mas lights dotted in your Irish-eyes
like genius stars, cigarette-smoke framing
your face like a Western Want-ad
of a gorgeous girl turned to crime,
then back,
You don’t want to fall
in love with me.
I began to.
