*Consider the juggernaut feeling*

Why the slippage? It depends
on whom you ask. I'm completely optimistic
about the future underneath this chorus
of gloom and doom. The problem is
that you can only grow by 19 percent.

Americans love statistics, I said,
and you’ve grown a lot by shifting
in your seat. Everything’s empty,
she whined. But love likes loneliness,
I said, and you lack society, you fail

to see that the only star up there
may just be a satellite. The constant moan
of airplanes, the dripping drains,
they sound like water from the windowsill.
I must apologize, but I only drink

whole milk straight from the cow.
She handed me a glass of rum. No
sperm needed, she smiled. The streetlight
erased her shadow and she stopped humming
goodbye. From the bathroom, nightly,

she fumbled with a jug of what she meant
as it splashed wildy onto her chest. Daily,
an alarm rang out and she shifted
the curtains to admire a torn watercolor
sunrise, a cheap recording of a bird’s song.