Stay Happy There

If I could play back every moment to you now

Spent lovesick and swollen on

Mornings mincing garlic on the counter by the sink

If I could hit the instant replay on only every good day

Would any of it catch you by surprise?

When you say, “something is missing now”

That’s what came back to me

Normal mornings like that set the knife down and forget where I’d left it

Making breakfast

Put coffee on the stove then scour every counter for the knife

Don’t be shy

Don’t be kind

Somewhere snow collects and bends the boughs of pines

But doesn’t it seem a bit wasteful to you

To throw away all of the time we spent perfecting our love in close quarters and confines?

Isn’t it wasteful?

And I am terrified that it doesn’t feel painful to me yet

Somewhere on top of the high rise there’s a woman on the edge of a building at the ledge

And traffics backing up on 35

It’s alright

I will fix whatever is not the sweetness in your eyes

Just sit down

Please

Sit down

Here

At the table and we’ll talk

Somewhere televisions light up in the night

I know things weren’t right

Maybe we were never cut out for the midwest life

Maybe we’d have done much better on a coast

There are certain things I doubt we’ll ever know

I know you were getting tired of my drinking

I guess I was never cut out for the coke scene

You were worried I would end up like your father and

Tired of the smoke and somewhere the wind blows

Somewhere a storm touches down north in Hudsonville

Somewhere the coffee starts to boil on the stove and

Somewhere the wind blows

Somewhere the river levels finally getting low

Somewhere I’m up past dawn till

Somewhere you live here still

Somewhere you’re already gone

Somewhere a radio is playing in a living room

Says the city lacks the funds to fix the bridge

Somewhere the deer are overrun, so they’re introducing wolves back on the ridge

And from here in the kitchen

I can hear the neighbors in the alley hanging linens

And the men collect the trash bins in the street

You’re speaking to me but I can’t understand you

The coffee is burning and

All of the times that we spent

That road trip out west

Through desert for the rest stops the kitsch we both collect

That winter the whole weekend we huddled by the stove

The cabin I had rented

The unexpected snow

That visit for christmas

On television binges

We’ll see friends in Brooklyn

Drive south to Richmond

There’s traffic on the bridge

A woman on the ledge

And everywhere the wind

Everything is happening at once