Four recent flies

By closing time
the pretty ones looked tired too.

That helped.

The bartender wiped down the counter
like he was erasing a crime.

A man I used to sleep with
was explaining himself to somebody new.

I left him to it.
Men can live for years
on nothing but explanation.

Morning in the kitchen.
Bad light.
A glass in the sink
with last night still on it.

Somewhere out there
men are putting on watches
and calling it character.

I am drinking coffee
that tastes like the burnt end
of a long mistake.

He said I was hard to know.

That from a man
who could disappear for three days
and come back with flowers
like a witness bribing the jury.

I took the flowers.

I was younger then.
I still confused beauty
with an apology.

At the bar on Woodmore
the waitress had better legs than patience.

I liked her face.
It had been through something.

Men tipped her badly
and called her sweetheart.

She kept moving.

That is half the history of women
right there.

Hangover morning.
Rain at the window.
My neighbor dragging bottles
to the curb like evidence.

A woman could get religion
on a day like this.

Instead I found two aspirin
and the nerve to remember
his real name.