Day 5: Cop Out 1 with an Old Poem

Laramie

For the four months you were here
you say Laramie’s houses remind you of Maryland.

It must be a cool town
their arid chimneys giving smokes freely like hitchhiker cigarettes in the desert

The fires inside would combine with the memory of a man
making love to his wife in front of the fire and their idiot dog, too
days before he steps out their door the last time.

These are what your latest words have given me
dry electronic snaps setting lazy forest fires in Arizona
after you visited Wyoming
creating memories of people that don’t exist.

Like the times when I forget that you do exist.

When can I question the things you said to me Arizonan?

You are reaching across thousands of miles of satellites and wires
wanting to kiss my neck and lay with me before you left Maryland.

All I can think now is that the last night you were here
I would have let you in my bed
and sleep on my pillows
and cover our clothes
and all your wandering with my blankets
and throughout the sleeping night
push and coerce you back to Tempe
to visiting Laramie
and in a few days, you would inevitably be there.

You would be hiking in the hills
I would see a year and a half later
where fires burn
and men make love to their wives
in front of flames and idiot canines
but smoke doesn’t stick in its dry air like
I thought it would.

And neither does your memory.

So I’ll climb a region-specific adobe roof with a blanket in hand.

I will spread it like a picnic over the edge of the wind
because it’s irreverent and random just like you.

On its inevitable way down
I’ll think I’ll capture you under it
sleeping so quiet
I won’t even know you’re there.