for christmas this year
i'm writing   because
you said you  wanted 
to remain friends.

i hope your children
 are doing well.
mine are almost
grown and gone.

anticipation of separation. you have
a long way to go yet.  but i'm
 in it, garrulous and green
with envy money christmas spirit.

no, i have not been drinking.
i got the pine mind.

say hey, what's up in the land
of your daily rebirth?
 loved you /gone
 off  learning the
 disremembrance dance.

   fire sifts softly thru  ashes
reburning. a pulse
 in the brainstem
recurrent and agey.

 lateral moves
gain yardage against all logic
and rules of the game
because time  pushes us foward
though mathematically
 we can never arrive
where we're going  .
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in the soft florida night
inner thigh warm and reconditioned
he tells his sister in law "a good woman
makes a good man
want to be better. i mean
she gives  him something to
strive for, somehow gives
him purpose". he's struggling
to articulate, there's so much more
the booze and weed  bring up
but they stifle his words. she 
feels the sincerity as his embrace
of the placid air stirs up a zephyr
to fill  his  open arms. his wife
is in the bedroom threatening  divorce
over a  missing angel.
they've all had a wee bit too much
to drink.a stumbling search of the house
reveals a sleeping baby, a desulatory teen,
a student nodding over books.  his wife's
getting upset,  tapping
her foot. hand on hip. where is it
hisses thru the vines.
he turns to his sister  in law explaining
 how  the last  time he was stoned 
he rearranged   the china cabinet and put the angel  in a more appropriate place in
the doll  cabinet.  yes, the doll cabinet.
she smiles, he's a good man
and she makes him better so listen sister
i don't want you ever
smokin weed with him again.
you hear me?