It Was Over Way Back Then

By Adrian Matejka

because of want & tumble?

Because of word crumbles

in the kitchen’s halogen?

No. Separate bedrooms

for years & here I am again:

up top in the kitchen light,

out front with a burnished

stove & the microwave’s

immaculate readouts. Up

here, my crosscut hands

greet the butter knife before

the big spread. What I want

now is a better ideogram

for instead after the skull

& crossbones on the pill bottles.

What I want is a bucket for

my panics & justifications.

My coddled addendums

downtagged on the sales table

each & every spring. Here

we go with that old seasonal

bullshit again. Earphones on

so your eardrums don’t get

punched out near the exit.

Tom Fords on, too, just

for the flex of it. This kind

of love is quick fashion, full

of glittery justifications.

Is it too much to ask for quiet

after all my losses in this

insistent chorus of renew?

Is it too much to be momentary

in the morning grass, suede

kicks beaten up by the dew?

Copyright Credit: Adrian Matejka, "It Was Over Way Back Then" from Somebody Else Sold the World. Copyright © 2021 by Adrian Matejka. Reprinted by permission of Penguin Random House LLC.

Source: Somebody Else Sold the World (Penguin Random House LLC, 2021)