A Year Ago Today

1)

Joe's become a functioning alcoholic,
which I'm okay with. As long as he drives
in a straight line, I don't refuse our meandering
journeys: around the cornfields surrounding Plano,
where the suburbanites raise chickens and flirt
with country music. I like Johnny Cash but
Joe blasts something drawling, with an acoustic
bass thumping to the time of a drunk tractor's
sparking cables, returning from the bar and
driving crookedly behind us. Joe passes me
the joint, then takes a long swig from his flask.


2)

He was a heavy guy before the cocaine,
but after I moved from the city, he went clean,
and there's something about the rounded
slope of his jaw that makes me want to cut
every excess fold of him until he's beautiful,
like the night he drove up to Bridgeport and
bought me a case of beer, fucked me on the stairs,
then pleaded for five more minutes in a voice
that sighed and pitched like the unsteady sway
of a pontoon boat on a windy lake,


3)

"The thing about you is,
I always end up coming back. You
treat me like shit,
use me until I'm dry of any
good will to give. I remember
what I said to you,
drinking rum at a family dinner,
when my phone was almost dying,
and I knew you were somewhere
celebrating the only way
you know how:

Never leave me,
never try hard drugs."


4)

I stare into soybeans, listening to him mumble
about hicktowns and a new quiet life. He hits
the brakes, takes a swig, then looks at me
through the haze of kush: but there's nothing
to say, no light except his phone and sparks
of a man who keeps veering off the road,

so Joe drives me home and congratulates me
on not ruining another relationship.