real enough

this was a real conversation
so there's not much point in reading it

it was something
i had in my early twenties
at a bus stop
it was with an old woman

to me, she was probably homeless
but the point is
you don't know this only by smell
and also as i said this was a real conversation
more like a sort of epigraph
in which she said everything was coming to an end
not with spittle, but spleen
or, really, with nothing at all
just the words off her back and i was
about 22 or so and i said sure maybe
it should

someone didn't
just come up with this
she had an actual scarf of brown
or green that was tied over
grey locks of wire
no one was sitting in the basement
at a keyboard making her tongue
rise against the roof of her mouth
and thwip behind two teeth
to elucidate that no everything shouldn't
some things shouldn't even though
even though they might

only a few things
good marriages
children being your own your only
couldn't finish that
but most stuff let go
at just the right time

it was right over there on 38th street
i was going to go back up
to school and see about you
i was happy too it's not like i was going to throw
myself in a river its not like
i was going to try to drink you whole
or wrap us up in rope
the kind of stuff people write in epistolary novellas
this was real, there was a little
grey down on her upper lip crossed by three lines
that allowed her mouth to be pursed whether it was
or not

i was only about 21 or 22 and i thought
it was beautiful and literary and thematic
just to go on living
for a few things you can't stand
to end but what i'm really saying is it was 
real enough, i can see that now