après moi le déluge

after me comes
the flood,
i whisper.

when he says "no" in russian,
suddenly i think of her brown hair spilling across the pillow
and i shake my head, "niet" (нет)
to this never lived memory

the afternoon tapers into highway
that's the way i define Time
in a place like houston

this place that swallows and clings to my bottles of dreams
half-assedly stored away.

what are the kinds of unhappiness? let me count the ways
perhaps i'm trembling and beyond your fingertips not because i am unhappy
but because you need to adjust your ambition, or your reach, or something in between


aren't we just migratory birds
and don't the seasons dictate our rise and decline?
like history books and
sunsets
or melodramas on tv


après moi le déluge