Both

Like any mystery, there’s no wrong answer.
But if say, I don’t know, God is like the economy,
or the stock market is a metric of Biblical whims,
or the root of any number is the speed of an angel falling,

then love wouldn’t be about what I can’t hold, but what holds me.
What I let
bend my body into all sorts of compromising shapes

where I find pocket change the color of overcooked steak
and Raytheon unionized
and what I’ll do, ultimately, for a buck.

Where I face myself come morning and start to believe
in the ce la vie’s and father, son and so on’s of the world.

This is what I mean.
For every park, a real estate office. For every office, a housing crisis.
For every you, a me, and me alone.

The beauty and tragedy might be you
can say anything
and it’ll be enough.

It won’t stop the cats and mice from raining.
It won’t stop the lists about lists flowing backwards
from you to yourself until I’m in it.
It won’t stop the color of a mirror

and these little ol’ me dreams
of the first crack of wet summer,
where the rugs pull themselves
at the mercy of our failed imaginations.

And still my nose can’t breathe.
And still I can trick myself into belief
that the world exists on an axis.
Of utmost amateur political scientist nutritionist relationship coach and corporate maximalist
versus
have I been outside today?

I suppose if I believe anything it’s that you pay for your advances.
And if that’s really the stuff of Job dancing green on the branches
then I fear you’ve skipped out the bathroom window before the check
and called it heeding the call.

Now mom don’t know what to say
when she bumps into another what’s his face chewing on your name at the store.
She’ll be at retirement village prom
and it’ll feel like all your fault
you were never cool in high school.

Lord, whoever you are, I’m asking you for the strength of patience.
This New American frontier of lazy or progress
is more delivery than deliverance, all either/or statement, genius or fascist.
It moves so quick it feels like there’s no options. Join the new thing or the army.
Paywall or black bar over a freshly eighteen pair of titties. No difference. No winning.

So I hope it’s my heart I hand to you.
And if that’s enough for the world to make me it’s boogeyman or cuck,
then from the corner chair I pray you hear
a voice destined over my wife’s slapping flesh
whispering boo

before I forgive you

____
Lucas Restivo lives in Massachusetts and plays music in Intac.