don't quote me on this

but there’s no wrong way

to do things. frank talks

mistakes how art

is just pushing them around

till they seem intentional

thought is brief

an image is absolute

is that what you said?

it’s what I wrote down

last night she read

me a passage

from the unbearable

lightness of being then

hung up                  a phone call

placed in a black frame

we’d just destroyed

her life leaving only me

in the apartment                where

I wasn’t supposed to be

it’s his

sister’s first day in town

and she saw

us kiss on the train

isn’t it funny how the sun

was out when we got on

and now the clouds

need laundered?

it’s like seeing umbrellas

thinking about getting one

then not then it starts

to rain   she brings me a small cup

of coffee it’s both warm and

cold        soy milk chilling

the just brewed dark      a hurt sky

poignantly taut over the airshaft

and now it’s raining right on time

(you can smell it coming through

the window). I say should we go

to the mattresses she asks what’s

that I say it’s an emergency term

like when everything else is

taken there’s a mattress left 
something that seems like a mistake 
until you figure out what 
to do with it