after Jameson Fitzpatrick
The vinegar tang of a glass of wine
left out on the counter overnight, the hint
of cumin on your fingertips, dried lavender.
All this is the smell of you in summer,
and now it is history. I woke alone
and slid my legs into the twin flannel
tunnels of my sweats, and it was history.
I walked down to the 7-Eleven
for a Big Gulp in lieu of coffee
and this ill-considered choice
was history. The sweet syrup in the mix
had never seen a cane plantation. It was born
of corn, which is what the ancient Maya
said the first people were made of. And yes
this too was history. Is history. Our ability
to take a moment here to quibble over verb tenses
is a consequence swollen fat as a paperback
some thoughtless person left out in the rain
of history. The melodramatic line breaks
in this poem are history. Both the relatively justified
length of line and the use of the word justified
to suggest things come out even in the end
are history. And the head-fake back there
in stanza one where you thought this might be
about the end of a relationship but discovered
otherwise is history. As is your inclination to continue
trusting me. Because the fact that I can take
the time to write this all down, considering what
to include and what to leave out, as I tap keys
that were injection-molded out of a blend
of thermoplastics by distant people I will never
have to think of again is one definition of history.
One definition. Not the first. And not the last.