Brunch Shift

We burn in daylight but we love the dogs until they

Become stardust again. Like all dogs do, they love us

Better. Small trash in our front yards as we leave, soft pack

Wrapper, drugstore receipt. Like stardust our life is penciled

In, imagines itself forward only as a name a day

On a schedule. Noon is the loneliest number sings

The sparrow & I’ve got my bloodshot eye on him. Jolt

On the timecard like setting a fractured bone. Sweetheart,

Praise the checkered kitchen floor, still sticking

To its late-night story. Marry the ketchups & loosen

The tin caps on all the salts. How many hungry girls

Until the mourning dove tries to make the last train

Home. The math of what to leave us: move the decimal

To the left & then double it. Then swallow it. Then cough

It up until it’s not the cup that’s bottomless. The filter

Is what keeps my mouth & two fingers from turning

To ash right along w/the cig when I inhale. Too many

Of us will measure out the rest of our hours here

In smoke. I swear it’ll be funnier when it happens

If you think I’ve been joking. I was above all

Waiting for your fondness, the softest punch

Of light like pushing a pill through its foil packet.