I was falling
but you were just pulling out of your driveway
you've done it and done it
each item on the Monopoly of life
Les slurred, spittle accumulated on the side
of his mouth
wasn't the guy in the house you can't see
from the road
convicted of something?
she lets you pick her apples
you'll find the cars from the A.A. meeting parked in front of the chapel
then they're gone
the tractor and defunct autos
the field facing the sea
honking geese remind you of cabs
still I'm one of the fallen
I don't have to be religious to believe
in sin — there is no way to break this free fall
you will only repent if there's absolution
have you thought of a cleansing
the all-juice diet?
the main stream is what you always claim
to be missing
it ripples insouciantly
the assumptions and certainties
I can't do two things
do what you've always done
eventually it will kill you
actors in Scandinavian noir series still
smoke and smoke and smoke
in Margarethe von Trotta's biopic
Hannah Arendt smokes and smokes
I got drunk by sea in Forte dei Marmi
and rode my bike straight into a wall
inklings, ha! over 50 years
my branches need to be pruned
last night was that sunset
now the birds are furiously tweeting
I don't know what I believe
the ground is not shaking beneath me
oh I have my friends
then there are the people like you
found in the continuum
every time I pull onto Main Street
I think of Les and Jim,
who was found in his garden
remember we attended the funeral
in Sag Harbor
you said,
"It's very sad."
on the way back to the city we talked
about the market
which neither of us played
bridge
Cavendish Club
in Second Life
where you reminisced
about your hands
the high dive
that's what the feeling was like
everyone is always telling me to let go
I have no intention of picking up the pieces
of starting
where I left off
prosody is what it's called, Bud
enjambment is alternate side of
the street parking
Francis Levy is a Wainscott resident. His novel "The Wormhole Society" will be released in October, along with a graphic novel version illustrated by Joseph Silver.