There will be a meteor shower at 3am,
this Kate Bush album is good,
Nick, who I sort of knew, died yesterday—
I tell you anything.
I told you when a guy in Pioneer Square
yelled at me, “Someone just
died back there!”
I heard sirens
Then he added, “Ya got a nice butt!”
I could think of
no better response to death.
I told you that when Nick died I pulled his old bag,
embroidered with his nickname, “Fingers,”
from under my bed and cried,
thinking of a painting he made
of a refrigerator with a forest inside it.
I told you the lace of peeling gray paint
surrounding an electrical meter
which no one else would notice but you
made me feel like a moderately-priced car
rattling from outrageously
loud, clear speakers.
All these words would be depleted by your absence
like the word “Fingers” on that bag
I could walk around complimenting strangers’ butts,
except “butts” would mean something different if you died
and so would “compliments.”
I wouldn’t know what to pull from under my bed
or put back.