Before we go further
I should probably tell you
I love In the Air Tonight
by Phil Collins. I blame it on Miami,
SoFlo sun, the sockless espadrilles
of Crockett and Tubbs, rocket-
fast cars and speed boats
chasing bad guys only one deed
different from themselves.

I own all thirty-nine studio albums
Prince made in his lifetime, most
posthumous ones, too. I miss
his magic guitar fingers, funky licks
that made sonic love to us,
Dearly Beloved, getting through
this thing called consumer culture.

I’ve amassed five copies
of The Lonely Bull by Herb Alpert,
his Tijuana Brass still part of the act.

I once had sex in an Indiana cornfield
which if I’m being honest, wasn’t sexy.
As a girl, I loved Holly Hobby,
through Strawberry Shortcake
was the doll of choice. I’m still obsessed
with sharks, makos sometimes
the tiny epaulettes,
the quick or the canny. I find
it difficult to throw away champagne bottles
as though I might replay the evening
over and again. I don’t take enough

time to consider what a poem is,
or to practice being thankful, any
of the things that might make me
less a sinner. But I’ll revise five hundred
times to get it right, and there must
be some salvation in that. These days
it’s all hormone replacement
and rowing machines, but I don’t smoke—
never have. Instead,
I watch sultry movie stars
suck from the end of the lit
cancer sticks.

I can feel it, tonight—
the air is thin and frosty, no way
to tell what’s coming,
why the moon is waning gibbous,
just that down here I’ll look for signs,
make these confessions, not free
of bad intentions but with stupid
unrepressed hope that everything
might just turn out okay.