*

You left me for the Ozarks
Left me to my own heart

So this is how it's going to feel
When you're really gone...

It's safe to take your picture out now
& I wonder
If there is an unwritten maximum
Of how much wine
Candles pen and papers
A man is allowed
Before something breaks

time wasted working
up to masterpieces
that topple into
anti-climaxes
falling under the excess waking up with half-poems
illegible
and roam into overcast mornings
away from annoyed
deactivated energies

I stand in the strewn mess
of incapability
It's safe to take your picture out now
And
As if mentally ill
Against a voice that assures me
"She never comes
Never has
And never will"
I tell myself
"There is time
to prepare for her presence"
-To the photograph, focused;

"There is time"