forgetting it

.

brautigan is writing about women
who don’t love him anymore
whose fingers he cannot forget
sadness washed down with acrid black coffee
in the muttered morning hours.

I didn’t want to write about loving
losing
misery with sidetinged loneliness
damp, like old spinach
and bitter,
like me.

so I started a poem about summer
where I reminisced:
first flushes of sunbeams on grubby kerbs
kids demanding cigarettes
in Pilrig park
like jakies on a comedown
ale on the grass
and the fluttering light through the open gallery windows -

where I sat listening to your guitar.

and there I ran out of things to say
but not before I noticed that brautigan was writing about
women
and that turned out well
so I tried a girlfriend
instead.