exile and alarm
waking up outside bodegas
on blocks where he doesn't belong
he still can't resist hiding
exactly where he's hidden
riding out the verse and chorus,
waiting for the coda.
In math, he's the inverse
of what you'd call an absconder:
sticking to the same path he's
already beaten
and waiting, half-hearted
for his turn to repeat
the line that he's never done
anything wrong—
not like those fuckers in
the Liz Phair songs. And yet,
he's the one still going
up on his tiptoes
superstitious and secretly
past your old mailbox,
because he's too self-conscious
to write anything longer
than an open mic poem about
never sending letters
or drinking your brand of soda again—let alone
something stronger.
