You're awfully lucky that Pink is the new White.

Hem typed standing up
starting at seven in the morning
was drunk by noon to take a nap
dreaming about big game hunting in Africa
boxing matches and bullfights
woke to edit a few of the weaker
declarative sentences
before spending another evening
hiding in the closet.



Hank hammered his girl in small rooms
his desk near a window facing Skid Row
cigarette ash burning through
his booze-stained undershirt
as the broads and dames passed by below
paying no attention to the dirty old man
with a bluebird in his heart
that he tried to drown with whiskey
for sixty years
unsuccessfully.



Dostoyevsky had his second wife
twenty-something years younger
transcribe some of his later works
since he was too ill to do it himself
and never got to finish that manuscript
of the sequel to The Brothers K
that probably would've blown
the rest of us Undergrounders away.

//

But David Vargas can't do it
with his back to his beloved
as she thumbs pages on his bed
without reading them
so the sound lets him know
she's still there
despite the mess
to spite the rest
like his mother used to do
from the couch outside his room
when he couldn't sleep at night
as a kid with those same big eyes
in that same big head
with that same big mouth
getting in the way of his heart.

Nor can he do it with hands tied
by slightly altered tales
that haven't unfolded yet
Life being bigger than a keyboard sometimes
as hard as it is for him to admit it
like how comforting that voice still sounds
as everything slides to minor
and the lining of the brain
stands to change
'cause you can't control
the timing of the tides
when the moon is down.