We Know the Results (rough, new)

The Super Bowl is Over

and with it, speculation

as pros and amateurs alike

call in to collect their bets.

The Super Bowl is  Over

and we're all a little drunk and

mentioning our friends in Philly

and considering more cocaine

or maybe fighting the bartender.

I need to leave this shouting neighborhood.

The Super Bowl is Over

and there are so many new buildings

beckoning for retail, the suited men

look tired, these streets will not be clean.

the sports bars prepare for another

downturn and hope to live off

these profits at least until Saint Patrick’s day.

The Super Bowl is Over

and it is time to  sort my w2s.

The Super Bowl is Over

and my Dad’s best friend, laid to rest

at the Rainier Beach Mortuary in

a two hour ceremony one hour before

I work. My sister texting tears that

she can’t make it out.

My Mom’s pet dove, family pet for

thirteen years, shivering in it’s blanket

then still.

The Super Bowl is Over

and seriously fuck that one guy,

and his voting record, this can,

or has to, mean something. We

taste  his tears from TV screens.

The Super Bowl is Over

and there are buses I no longer take

pictures I’m wiping from my phone

a Cat I’ll never see again

and a line around the block

for a play I will not see.

The Super Bowl is Over

so no more guesswork. The why

it went the way it did are stories

that will change with tellers. There

will be another one next year

and after that, an occasion

for fundraisers and toy drives
and nachos and puppies

and million dollar commercials.

The Super Bowl is Over

which means there must be winners

but I am more concerned with losses now;

that corner space in the charming building
promised such potential, sits empty.

23/30: "Good morning my son! Your Father and I are planning on dying soon."

. . . is what I heard over the Sprint Network

when an idle mention of Life Insurance, and how

they are finally getting On That.

I thought of my Grandpa's funeral, my Aunt's

funeral, my Grandmother's funeral, all

the stacks of paperwork and

runs to party supply stores for ribbons

and picture frames, and the tedium of

memorials I saw the women of the family

execute sharply and how I could barely keep

it together.

". . . so if, you know, The Lord decides to take us

both at once, make it easy on us. . . of course, that'd

be harder on you kids. . ."

That would be consistent with the behavior

of the Lord I've met. First I picture a car accident

something bloody on a bridge, called to

Identify the bodies. . . But no.

This would be more like Enoch, aforementioned

Lord giving the two finger beckon;

both my parents sitting together, holding hands

the way they do, silently when the right

jazz standard, or Beatles song comes

on, in one of the cars they

actually liked, that little yellow one maybe

and they just

drive

away.

Back at the 'rents

what’d they say to the dove in the cage
the first time they put the blanket over the bars
for the night, turned the light out
and went to bed?

Its not a bad life, food, water, mandatory sleeping hours.
Some never get enough of any,
And damned if I’m going to turn this
Into some sort of metaphor for peace or freedom.

Sometimes I get awakened by hammers
At eight in the morning, the deck my parents
have been waiting for for years finally
getting its nails in.
I think brief thoughts about dutch-protestant
work ethic and the value of patience
as I pull a pillow over my head
And wait until they’re done
To coffee and jobsearch, unshaven.

There are rot-blackened bananas hanging from
the fruithook and I think my sisters did not eat
all their oatmeal. This could be something about waste

But I predict banana bread.