New Love Stories

The wedding reception was outfitted with the usual diversions –
my new wife was a very wealthy woman
thanks to a late father who had made his money
selling explosives and machine-guns to warlords in central Africa
so that they could paralyze more children with landmines –
And so for us that meant an open bar and a fancy Hollywood DJ.
I was not bothered by her shrill friends,
Or the vows she wrote herself which took an hour to read.

That night we took the jet to her villa outside of Paris
And slow danced to soft jazz music
on the balcony off the master bedroom.
Darling, she purred,
Her breath hot and smelling of expensive wine,
I’m so happy.
And I said, I am too, and
we danced closer to the railing.

Z

Inspired by the work of Alexey Pajitnov.

****

This is the end.
You sowed the seeds of your own destruction
even as you left the last column free.
I watched you squirrel those boxes away in the corner
on top of the T-blocks,
assuring yourself, perhaps, that you’d deal
with those tiny gaps later,
when you had more time,
more space,
and a few more points under your belt.

The line piece you were waiting for, though, has come and gone
and now here I am, staring down at a jagged
and desperate landscape where I don’t belong.
Were you satisfied, clearing four lines
to leave nothing but a fourteen-story tower
built of rotted concrete?
Were the points worth this immovable tribute
to short-sightedness?

I have no regrets, friend.
I only hope you can say the same.