Tony Robinson, "To the Future"

My friends moved to Chicago, leaving me here on the sidewalk where a dandelion pushes up.

I have an amazing story to tell you: the rash on my face is caused by drinking too much.

I often think in the summer of moving with you to Arizona to sand dunes to dune grass tufted high to saguaros.

I think on these long days of Popsicles.

All afternoon and evening it’s hot and old folks cluster around rusted automobiles.

There is gunmetal and skin patchy and rough.

We turn different colors against the sun in Arizona and we strive to make it through the next year one year at a time.

I do not have an automobile you will have to drive me there and blow me in the front passenger seat.

We will drink in Arizona to keep cool to keep our rapidly oxidizing bodies supple against the firm desert weather.

I have filled my portable storage device with photographs and songs of you.

Trying on my best outfits, I am torn between linen and tweed, my chest cracked open with love.

Breaking the mirror and losing the pieces, set free by a small anthology of favorite verses, set free by airy absences left behind by my gone compatriots.

If I say you are statuesque it means I want to extend you, want our bodies to be like canoes on water like yellow leaves blanketing the Autumn sidewalk.

I don’t know who you are yet. I haven’t had the pleasure of your coming.