Jaundiced in this March

We’ve fallen like pennies
down into couch cushions,
with stomachs full of whiskey.


You, who do not belong to me,
but to her-- someone I have seen
just once, heard speak, just once,
yet I pretend does not exist.

I am a hostage, a runaway,
the thing-being-chased, stiff inside
a roll of carpet until dawn
when I wake up in my own bed,
realize there is no chase, no danger.

I look at my hands in dreams
and it never puts me in control.


You occupy a millimeter of my skin
and it itches all night long.


Under the yellow light of day,
I am jaundiced in this March,

this gallant season,
that rides in on horseback
but stumbles in the flooded streams.