to fold queen size bed sheets.   you left your reds hat   in the back seat of the volvo.      she wanted to have it cast in bronze   to be put on display next to your baby shoes   and first buck on the t.v. in the den.      but i knew you'd be back   to eat a bowl of peanut butter bumpers,   to jerk off to the lingerie ads   in the j.c. penny catalog.   i knew you'd be back.   i knew you'd come back,   to go back to school   or get a job at the downtown library,   the health food store,   painting apartments for ray ritchie,   or to work at the cigar kiosk   at kenwood mall.      it's cool.   just make sure   you get out of here by December.   go to California. go to Hawaii.   Cincinnati sucks in the winter,   you know that like the bump   on the back of your neck.   it sucks the leaves from the trees,   and by the time the snow is melting,   they always find four or five   bodies hanging by belts   from the train trestles,   or in empty parking lots   slit wrists, turning what's left   of the snow into cherry slushy.      i know,   all beautiful places   are prone to natural disaster.   but being swallowed   by the earth in manila   beats a slow death   in the Midwest.      last night i practiced holding my breath.   my record is two minutes thirteen seconds.   but that was in the swimming pool last summer.   it's easier in water.   just do the dead-man's-float.   let your limbs drift.   don't count in your head.   ignore your pumping blood.   focus on the quiet.