Trapdoor Fucking Exit, Part 4

*

I know I can’t separate
feelings from faces,
but what’s the story
buried beneath all this
abstraction: when you move
some things get lost
and others are broken.
Still you can feel caught
up:
              from now on
              I will make my days
              as I see fit.
But on closer inspection
one finds—Enough!
Enough story to carry
me through a few
more pages at least.
I can’t separate people
from the pages
they’ve been printed on.
Tomorrow arrives
making yesterday
appear pitiful, but I’d
like to remain drenched
its warm yellow tincture
like a family photograph
from the 70’s, cannabis
dust in the spine of a book,
before it’s gone
once and for all.
Once and for all
I’d like to acknowledge
my indebtedness to the works
of Buffy Sainte-Marie.
I have to admit
                       I’m getting
              drunker
                    & drunker
every time I go to San Francisco
The Beauty Bar, the Arrow
Bar, El Rio,
everyone else is racing
home with someone
while I can’t find my way
back to the bay bridge.

*

And it feels strange writing
about the city since I’m rarely there,
and when I am I only rush to
Aquarius to pick up my records,
stop to see if Cedar and Johnny
are home then hope that Sandra
will eat dinner with me
at Taqueria Cancun—
Then back to Oakland
back to the lake
back to sleep. I dream
that Astrid is trying
frantically to free a yellow bird
from a nest of extension cords.
Now it’s over. The heater
only makes the living-
room warm when it’s on,
but I won’t leave it on
because I’m cheap. And
it’s all right to be cheap as long
as you spend your money
on things that matter:
books, records, and drugs.
Sandra thinks that I
am wrong about this:
So warmth doesn’t matter?
           No, it does not.
Does every argument
have to end with a joke?
           No, not every one.