42 (old friend)


Applebees and a strip club, all for free.

Isn't that heaven to us, old friend?

Old friend, who stood with me at the divide, 

knowing, just briefly, they were just one cliff,

just one crashing chasm of heels and jeans,

and decades, and children who understand.

The children can forgive, unlike the man

who saw the face of Satan in his spleen,

smiling, sanguine, exposed in his white ribs.

If it's not right, what then?  If it's not right,

what then?  If it's not right, what then?  What then?

Heaven is a strip club and Applebees,

and it's all for free, my friend, all for free.



originally published  in The Brooklyn Rail