Morning Poem

After Charlie Rose where a man claimed proof
God is human, I hump the ten minute hill
to catch the 61C which arrives two minutes after
the rain carries me without O'Hara or the blue
umbrella hanging on my closet door to Pamela's
on Forbes where I'm surprised to see K above a plate
of pancakes in a corner by a window, outside which
rain is kissing the heads of beautiful and ugly passersby

I join her, order ice-water and the Early Bird Special
at $4.87 after taxes and mention how long it's been
since I've seen her but not the fact she looks beat
and the webs through her hair kind of scare me
or that I expected bandages to brace her razor-prone
wrists and we don't explain how we came to eat alone
but talk about what it means to be on the wagon which K
is, how the news said nothing about rain, and I bring up
Frank's dumb dune-buggie death and the poems
I left on the chair by my bed as I eye the pack of Marlboro
Lights and damp matches by K which means we're in
the smoking section and nothing makes sense because
the windows don't open and Pamela's is only a tiny room
with soaked breathing people like us

By the time I finish the Early Bird, K has split
and I follow but she's long gone so I wait for my bus
in the rain which is not like a kiss, but a baptism
cleaving to my brown skin and the t-shirt
I stole off my father who smoked Kools on the steps back
home, and grew too fat to wear it