cutting back. what it means.

I met a nurse today that talked about slow cancer
coming from the skin inward and toward the lungs.
strangers seated restlessly in bars tell me these things outside of 911,
dancing with their hands to Diana Ross, and pretending to be your friend forever.
disease permeates, and you always said that the drinking would take you down.
It's just bad luck, our last name curse.
Well... stubborn men and all the painkillers in the world couldn't win last summer...
but try again in four seasons, and we'll see what happens.

Advised en espanol in the parking lot
of a strip mall,
about leaving and driving across town
four thousand miles away, she said
it would be a good thing,
to leave you and you, & my next of kin.

No time to be sedentary, couldn't spend it all between
miscellaneous acquaintances, and the television.
sad that I couldn't
see you in 15 years, hogging the lava...
but remember? I remember.
I'd have liked so much to sleep like I did
before math class for hours with the radio on,
in a warm, temporary shallow bed.
In the dark.