When the universe winks,
I wink back reflexively
As now, “Part-Time Lover”
on the taxi radio & my head
half out the window
grinning at bleached sky
on waterway, this life caught
in a protracted moment of buffering
Stevie’s talk of illicitness
& discretion rings quaint:
an affair, in its exactitude, marks
the lover as wrong, full stop
A useless gauge if the stakes
aren’t so linear, as here
In Durak, the player left holding
cards is deemed the fool
There’s no option to fold
if you foresee it–
wait for defeat or play like
you don’t know it’s coming
I haven’t decided to leave you
yet, but I can envision it today
in this pocket of bliss, my body
hazed with yr brackish stink
Last week, I tried to lose a man
at the art museum, but he kept
appearing, palm on my back,
to ask what I thought. I thought
only of a lost capacity to ignore
discord for carnality’s sake
Dura, dura sang Vadim
when I lost. The table laughed
& so did I. That’s how it goes:
I don’t know I’m a dura until
the universe winks & I squint
to determine whether
it’s an illusion. As if knowing
alters the outcome