WALSTS

for Mary on her 29^th birthday

you mean so much to me

it’s just not worth calculating – like the time I would spend

tallying it all up is better spent

writing something no one will read but you

have you ever tried to use a calculator as a shoe horn

or a whisk? It’s nearly useless in its omnipresent usefulness

as if the un-keyed numbers inside the machine

have histories of their own

& are unwilling to tell us, those bastards

I’ve figured out that there will always be new

restaurants to try with you, new and violent movies

to force you to watch, video games

where we murder thousands, literally

& places to explore – the limitless cracks in the

basement that we spelunk with headlamps &

40s of horse spit – the floating faces in neighbor’s window

as we mimic the mating calls of owls or just

our own mating calls whatever

fantastic, we will read about it

because I’ll force us to do that too  

we play pool together & calculate what each other

are looking at: high def televisions, buffalo chicken wings

Bocce & crotches & the fools that make this life

so fucking good to live

with you, I’m saying

that’s the whole point, right? This, right here

is very exciting & no one should be allowed to use the

word love in a poem. Anyone that does should have their

hands chopped off

& set out on the sidewalk as a warning to all

poets & people entertaining the notion that someday,

through hard work & countless rejections,

they might be a poet

so much of the calculation isn’t figuring out what

to do, but what not to do. There’s only one calculator

that can figure out restraint – which ball to hit & at what angle –

how much will this really make me happy? Watching you

whisk or flip or marinate poolside in the great state of Texas

all of these questions are much easier 

for the most part

love does that to you

the change is a subtle as a comma, but easier to use correctly

because you make that easy too

I mean, you mean, we all mean something to someone

I love you