or maybe it's the weather,

this morning when I took a shower
I didn’t get to wash my hair,
because of how the hot water disappeared
both gradually and suddenly,
and it was very uncomfortable and quite a little tragic
and I wondered if this was how people felt
on the titanic.

on spring garden tonight there were trees
and one of them was losing its leaves
in a way just like isolated snow falling

big, orange, isolated snow

and on 17th street there are bricks
laid the way a knight moves,
and the homeless move
like they’re pulled ahead on strings
and I like how my electric fan moves back and forth
it could be scolding me
or scouting the perimeter
or rheumatic.

five years ago we played a lot of kickball
and there was this one game where the bases were loaded
and dave weeks lit a cigarette
and kicked a grand slam
and circled the bases
and finished the smoke by the time he got home.
this was the pinnacle of his life, and many things
went downhill after it, and sometimes I want to take the feeling of that game
but without the outfield
all of us close together
in a box
that I can close up and ship you away in
so that all of my memories of us
are represented by a series of carefully selected polaroids
that I can roll up like a fruit roll-up
and store with somebody else’s cigarettes.

the other day I bought a bar of soap so big I cannot get my hand around it.

once out my window I saw a car with bullhorns
telling people what to do.

have you ever looked out your window and seen someone give birth?
there are times it feels like that,
but maybe without all the blood
and with us all being pulled ahead
bother gradually and suddenly
and with all of us screaming our heads off
and watching out for the icebergs,
they are dead ahead, and mostly hidden,
someone once told me like a Hemmingway story
like hills like white elephants,
that was how they described an iceberg.