Interval

Don’t look at the crumbs
on my countertop
and the floors I haven’t cleaned
since I moved in here,
I am getting to them slowly
in my own way.

I fuck around on phone calls
because the person on the other end
is way too far away to ever strangle me.
So fuck them and their questions
about the credit cards I never use
and vacation time I save for when it’s raining.

There’s too much happening in the photo
that I took of her by the train tracks
where the airfield makes it’s contact
with society. Her scarf looks like a dragon
as it flies away too thin to keep her warm
here in the first place.

I can only finish half the coffee
but the cookie she served with it
can’t be left here in this diner
where the cooks all
let their fingers burn in dish water.
I scarf it down and it becomes
a part of me.

The digital vibration left by T.V. static
makes it hard to fall asleep tonight,
no matter how much moonlight
tries to smother me.

It chases me away until the morning
when the doves all pick their garbage cans
and the woman with the violin sends scales
down through the air vents
like a snowflake landing softly
on her forehead.

We know it isn’t fair when we are smearing
all that toothpaste on our molars,
and the open window only lets in mist.
It doesn’t stop us though
like hollow points that core us all like apples
if we ask too many questions, about anything.

A string breaks and the interval is everything.