Everyone i know is building

& filling their house while i keep

Licking paint onto my fingernails.


The work of adulthood

Is dubious. Their children

Are beautiful & lack debt.


As friday clamors on inside

Its calendrical lung


I go to the club to drop something

Then pick it back up


I fly on my bicycle alone

To the barroom & watch

A boy play pool


He dances with a cue

In his teeth


His shirt holds him

Like a bad mother


I drink my coke through a straw

Suck the whole bar through it


My friends are all home

Praying their infants sleep

Through the evening


I pray too, the cradle crying

& on fire between my legs.