Stay Happy There

If I could play back every moment to you now
Spent lovesick and swollen on
Mornings mincing garlic on the counter by the sink
If I could hit the instant replay on only every good day
Would any of it catch you by surprise?

When you say, “something is missing now”
That’s what came back to me
Normal mornings like that set the knife down and forget where I’d left it
Making breakfast
Put coffee on the stove then scour every counter for the knife

Don’t be shy
Don’t be kind
Somewhere snow collects and bends the boughs of pines

But doesn’t it seem a bit wasteful to you
To throw away all of the time we spent perfecting our love in close quarters and confines?
Isn’t it wasteful?
And I am terrified that it doesn’t feel painful to me yet
Somewhere on top of the high rise there’s a woman on the edge of a building at the ledge
And traffics backing up on 35

It’s alright
I will fix whatever is not the sweetness in your eyes
Just sit down
Please
Sit down
Here
At the table and we’ll talk
Somewhere televisions light up in the night

I know things weren’t right
Maybe we were never cut out for the midwest life
Maybe we’d have done much better on a coast
There are certain things I doubt we’ll ever know

I know you were getting tired of my drinking
I guess I was never cut out for the coke scene
You were worried I would end up like your father and
Tired of the smoke and somewhere the wind blows

Somewhere a storm touches down north in Hudsonville

Somewhere the coffee starts to boil on the stove and
Somewhere the wind blows

Somewhere the river levels finally getting low

Somewhere I’m up past dawn till
Somewhere you live here still
Somewhere you’re already gone

Somewhere a radio is playing in a living room
Says the city lacks the funds to fix the bridge

Somewhere the deer are overrun, so they’re introducing wolves back on the ridge

And from here in the kitchen
I can hear the neighbors in the alley hanging linens
And the men collect the trash bins in the street
You’re speaking to me but I can’t understand you
The coffee is burning and
All of the times that we spent
That road trip out west
Through desert for the rest stops the kitsch we both collect
That winter the whole weekend we huddled by the stove
The cabin I had rented
The unexpected snow
That visit for christmas
On television binges
We’ll see friends in Brooklyn
Drive south to Richmond
There’s traffic on the bridge
A woman on the ledge
And everywhere the wind

Everything is happening at once