NewPoetry

Michael Holmes

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For Mary

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I’m dead and you’re 80
In a Circle K
There’s still gas and gas stations
And Circle Ks
And waiting for someone
To triple check numbers
And winner gagnant
When you just want smokes

And it’s your first pack in 35 years
And the liquor store paper bag
Is balled up in my seat
Cause I was always your shotgun
Your huckleberry until I wasn’t
And Dad says the car’s still a mess
And the bottle’s all fuck the police
Cracked like your whiskey smile

Drinking to me…
I’ll forever want you to be
Drinking to me

And you’re at the piano
David and the Russians approve
Filling side plate ashtrays
With scores of other boys
I coulda been all the other boys
So I’m not jealous any more
I know you change every chorus
The way you taught me to never do

Singing what no one will sing
When you go changin’ words
Cause our fading walls could use a coat
Maybe the Winter Dove I saw you in first
But your right hand floats a stutter
And my Jameson ripples to the lip
As you break up to the minor
The way we never did

Drinking to me…
I’ll forever want you to be
Drinking to me

I’m dead and you’re 80
And baby I’m mostly ok
You still wrestle my cold hand
Talking our way through the Flats
And cigarette punctuation
Shows me how to understand
What your last date said
Each day up to the end

You’re so damn young and beautiful
Do you know how much I love you?
I promised I’d never ask again
Though ghosts are only true
To their last breath
My vow will last until then
And when you fill a glass for me
I’ll be drinking to you too

Drinking to me…
I’ll forever want you to be
Drinking to me

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