While out at Bullman’s Pizza with Ty and Caroline
to celebrate the job offer my mother watched
her most recent ex-husband arrive with a woman

miss the lake back home
so I drove to the ocean
mussels always taste like the waters they’re from

They have boarded up the place, emptied out the popcorn machines, and the carpet stinks of butter and mud as it is torn from the flooring.

When a cat comes to lay at your feet
you never ask why, but you do
hold still for as long as you possibly can

the ground
into being, what does that say about farming?

They tell you grief comes with permissions,
a hall pass, an extension, a moment's reprieve.

I’m trying to get into a life of hedonism
but I honestly skew more towards prude.

I find him in the kitchen making sandwiches, as men do, not with marmalade but with mandarins.