18. On the corner of McGolrick Park
you found the "meaning of life" in a tuna-fish sandwich,
paper plate, red Formica.

At the two-minute warning,
simplicity is losing by a landslide.
Everybody gets sick.

A relic of simpler times. Intelligence without
cruelty, and perfection without arrogance,
benefits and everything.

Baseball season starts soon.
You have been back for a year, and
for the first time you begin to feel your age.

Perhaps the question is not when, but why:
do you like it disjointed, nose too big for the face,
sentences out of order, all those wrong notes,

cracked silhouettes and salty hair.

Leave this room with certainty in your heart.

You will figure it out: navigate neighborhoods,
the stifling and the empty. When the bell rings
clamp your jaw shut. When the time is right,
use your sweaty body. Use the clean side
of your skin. Use your love.