Peter Cole Friedman
IN PASSING
Don’t need imperatives, it all happens. Open cabin
door view. Most beautiful thing for a second. And
then the sad piggy bank mogul fracks his own
pastures. The frog slaps his tongue. How some
people use heaven. Should I be building a fort?
Flights of stairs come to mind, as do gifts gifted me
you’ve kindly held and forgotten to return. Each
headlight was a kind of deer. Where’s your ‘I’m fifty
percent water’ when you’re alone in a desert?
Condensation on my rearview again. I say my but
it’s a borrowed car, a hired driver. Show me a love
note that wasn’t overdue. A face that hasn’t lost all
disparity in passing. I believe in you.
LOW-RES
Donovan record in the Poconos. Old ponchos.
That’s the kind of dust I mean. The higher ups just
fluffing the Pomeranian, while the kids mince the
lice, trace lineages into dusk. Litmus test in the
pool. Plastic daisies bobbing on a sill. Swallows on a
barge. Giving back to the continuity. The low-res
degree behind you now. $9/hr to start but a total
sucker for anything resembling memory, loss,
despair—any of those gross abstractions beneath
which human ache amounts to such recurring
concussion symptoms I can practically put
asymptotes where your head hurts hard. That’s the
sexiest I’ve felt all year.
