The Merkin Motets or Good to the Last Straw

by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright

Like an old hotel with plywood on the doors
and mothy curtains over black-eyed windows.

Like the difference between wage and wager,
we have a little spat over the cost of time.

Like the last survivor of The Spinners who
died at the age of 95 in North Carolina today.

Like listening to “Lament for Beowulf,”
its long suddenness replenishing its past.

Like having a shadow that itches, like …
a horn of fog on a Sunday without sun.

Like being good to the last straw, you appear
to me, a mix between a lifeboat and a flood.

Silly love. You party with extremity. Drunk
on being here, I keep writing the same poem.