days are getting great,
yet I do not know how
to deal with that fact.
the returned emails,
a fun future's posibility,
NYC farts to LA recitals
bookend my Monday.
one doesn't have to know
the vault of a bank
to understand the riches
of a long overdue smile.
I wonder what my grandma
Hazel would think
at my getting night nickels
to read Sylvia with pals.
she was raised in a Catholic shack
in a suburb of Chicago
without the luxury of dreams,
not even knowing where they came from.
she didn't know where she came from,
learning later – after factory fishing,
and marrying a purple-hearted pilgrim –
that she isn't even Italian.
I would bet a sawbuck
that her happiness was simple,
and I would double-or-nothing
that she would scratch her head at this shit.
in the swirling hours
of an afternoon that feels like five days,
I remind myself to feel this happiness
despite my body's rejection of it.
Spring will come with robin birds,
and doubtless surprises,
but Hazel would tell me today
is the only day to kvetch upon.
tomorrow the world
may be transparent,
but that is a paltry substitute
for the fight that a little bit of light provides.
to that spumiest spill of soul,
I write for fear of silence,
the ghost of Hazel,
and a former shotglass full of happiness.