—almost cento of lines from the series I Think You Should Leave

Anna? Anna. You have no good reason to believe
we won’t spend the rest of our lives in each other’s arms.
I cannot talk about it without crying. I think I’m
ready to hold the baby – my life, you stretched it out,

it looks like a bell now. Does this count as what I get
for Christmas as my gift? Is that a hot dog up your sleeve?
The baby duck gets his head stuck in a stewed tomato.
He finds a battery in there. He hits the high C all night long,

then gets pancaked by a drunk dump truck driver.
No coffin – just wet, wet mud. And we’re so buried
in our phones, instead of giving you a real smile, I send
you three emojis: two motorcycles with a house in the middle.

I’m riding shotgun in your car. The moon rocks on the river –
the water stinks. The ghosts, they’re fucking scared,

they’ve never seen so much food in the water as this. With that
much cherry and ground chuck and popcorn, it can’t be healthy.
One says, “what a crop.” Another: “somewhere, our wires
got crossed.” To us, they yell: “put your fucking phones away!”

This poem is kind of a cosmic gumbo. You
and I were joking in the car earlier about
this poem being a cosmic gumbo – baby, baby, baby,
baby, bae-babe-babe. Oh, baby, baby, bae-babe-babe,

oh, my god. I am serious as a heart attack.
It’s the T-bone steaks I eat that’ll give me cancer.
It’s the cigars I smoke that’ll give me cancer.
If your steering wheel whiffs out of the window, we’re toast.

But tonight is a jokehole just for farts. That last one
of yours was everything! We might try a new restaurant –