The Brooklyn Rail

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smoked a Marlboro Gold
with distinct notes of walnuts and hard salami
      drew a picture and convinced her
to draw one too delicacy is always the great revelation
     we got a speeding ticket
just when we’d been talking about how we’d do it
“I’d shoot myself in the head full of pills
while tumbling from the bridge”

no long, costly retreat    no being satisfied
with crumbs       though I love crumbs
and adore retreat    all those confessions made
on the blasted wagons someone already plans
to requisition in the chaos and recrimination that awaits
     cross broad and variegated country
having preemptively removed my uniform
per the survival manual
     unsung genre