elephants and nomads

11:38. I get a text:
"I really wish you'd come over, though."
Like I ever needed to be coerced.
"Wanna come watch
a movie?" You ask.
Like watching movies together
is something we like to do.
Although, I can vaguely recall
Patrick Swayze
saying something bad ass then
jumping out of a plane
that time I spilled wine
all over your bed sheets.

So I say "Okay.
But first I have to finish
my homework."
I read three lines of an
essay on kinetic
landscape, stopping
at the phrase
"necessary evil".
I ride my bike
to seven eleven.
I take a shower
with a Coors Light.
I think about elephants
and nomads.
How they migrate
in circles, eating everything,
moving on when there's
nothing left for them.
One year later
they're back where
they started again.

I ask the cab driver
if I can smoke a cigarette.
He says, "No."
He says, "There's
a new law
about cab drivers
and prostitutes."
"Well is it cool
if I drink
a beer then?"
He says that's okay.
A few blocks later,
I'm still confused.
You know. About
elephants, nomads, life.
But mostly about the whole prostitute thing.

I take a hearty swig of the
silver bullet, then ask,
"What's with this new law
about the drivers,
and the prostitutes?"
"Now," he says,
"they want me to pay
two hundred and fifty dollars."
Which is a lot, I think,
for a BJ or whatever.
But then he says,
"I tell prostitute:
You want to smoke
you can pay the two fifty."
And it hits me:
Ohhhh,
Passenger. He thinks
he's saying passenger.

There's not much to say
about what happens next.
We sit on the same stoop.
Smoke the same cigarettes.
You ask me the same questions
you asked me last year.
Your room, your bed,
your fucked up grill,
the same, but different.
This must be how the
elephant feels. You read
me a blurb for the movie.
It sounds awful. Still,
I'm impressed that
tonight's invitation
wasn't contingent
on you being too fucked up
to read. Baby steps, I think.

Baby elephant.
Mouth-kissing, neck-gripping,
ear-biting, hair-pulling,
bored little baby elephant.
I say, let's take it slow tonight.
In fifteen minutes
you're snoring. I tip-toe
to the bathroom, where
one year ago I ran
us a bubble bath and
we soaked in the grime
and listened to Tom
Waits and ashed our
cigarettes in the water
and then sun came up
and you fell asleep.

But the bathroom is
fucking spotless. I can't
even recognize it. I want
whiskers in the sink.
I want filth. I want
a trail of rust bleeding
down the side of the tub
from the can of shaving cream
I emptied on your chest
while you slept, one year
ago. I want to wake you up,
walk to Safeway, make out
in front of the beer cooler.
I want it to feel like home.
But I am an elephant;
I am a nomad.