reading Proust

 
for
the umpteenth time,

i
came across
the word “buttercup”

and,
like that
famous madeleine cookie

in
the beginning
of that long and wonderfully
difficult book,

i thought
back to a time
when me and my sister

used to walk
into the wood behind our house

and
pick these
little yellow flowers,

and
she taught me
how to hold them

under
her chin
where i could
see the reflection

of
the flower,
bright and yellow

and gone
the second i took
my eight year old hand away.

*

every morning, before work,

 
he’d play
Stravinsky’s FIREBIRD…

loud…
real loud.
so loud that
the asshole neighbor
called the cops, but the cops
said they couldn’t do anything during the day,

and
he knew it
would really piss him off,

so he played it even louder.

the walls shook.

it was
a very good day.

*

it felt like

 
the
whole world
was coming down

around his ears.

it’s been
two weeks
since they shut
off the gas, then
the lights and the water,

and
it was
right around then

that
she decided
she had enough
and she was gone, too.

and
now he
spent the days
when he could afford it,
sitting in the diner as long as he could,

trying
not to eat
or think or move,
just holding his coffee and
and staring a hole in his scrambled eggs.

***

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