Some mornings you jump out of bed and it’s so bright
you start dancing before you even have time to put on

a tropicalia record. More often we make bargains:
wake me up in twenty minutes and I’ll practice the accordion

and scramble eggs, or I’ll keep your memories
if you keep mine, forgetting a form of increased

dependence, as in Without his Palmpilot he’s useless,
We turn to history for political instruction, I need you

more than my own childhood. With you I learned to salt
my foods, pronounce certain words (quinoa, phenomenology,

slough off) and the differences between pool cages and screens
before I ever saw one. At the costume party you said

angels cried on newly mown lawns. Down here we get
the real in a piece with the mythic: alligators

blocking the bicycle path like the droves
Bartram would’ve used for stepping stones except

they revolted with teeth. Even Frankie and Albert existed
(Saint Louis, 1899) but I promise to wrestle what we can’t

outrun zigzag. Try stamping that on a quarter.