Steaks, Books, and Knowing It's Over

If things are over why do we archive them?

Do we somehow doubt their doneness

like the steak we double dip the thermometer in?

Can’t we just touch the moment and if it springs back

we know it’s done?

Relationships and history are not steaks, not archives

even though we can still taste the blood

and we can recite the date it all ended.

We don’t forget because the juices flow through us

pumping the memories with oxygen

keeping them fresh and present.

Is new simply a layer we spread over the old

Private Dance

You look like a fella who could use a dance? She pitches as though selling me a Rolex. This is a your-best-credit-card-only kind of place. I pay, and we dance like rocks stuck to earth.

The next time I’m dressed to impress with my suit. She nods, asks for my name, and loosens my tie. My name rhymes with the river where I was baptized. I pay, and we dance with the coolness of the lake.

Less time passes before the next dance, where I ask. I ask her name and compliment her on the sparkly dress. It sparkles like the prom where she won homecoming queen. I pay, and we dance like flames burning up the night.