Recessional

For three years we perfected vanishing in
the doorways of friends, sexy as two blue lips.
Lovely Laura‚ voice waned bottleneck slide‚

perched shirtless on my oak bureau‚ knees lilting
downbeat to the subterranean thump and pyrotechnic
acid-warble of Sly’s Family Stone‚ you are now

too often eroded past. Tongues fumbled in that
divorce refinery doubling as our apartment complex.
Shady Dearest‚ whenever you touched my wrists‚

magnolias blossomed phosphorous over driveways‚
the neighbors lost hubcaps. You made me feel
like a film—chromatic and racy‚ well-paced until

the bunk finale when a stranger lustfully sighs near
the jukebox. I couldn’t name it. Leaving‚ you said
“Mourning Is Easy and Poisonous” sounds right.