“The Day I Come To Get You My Flight Is Delayed” by Dan Nowak

Underneath me, the concrete bites
hot in a September sun. I sit,
by the tarmac for the taxi that mightnot come, feeling dirty and bored. Complicit
Philadelphia throbs vowels.
My mouth hungers for uncompromising

kisses. Today is the day we are vowing
ourselves unsingle. Our marriage
carriage is late with no bands, just towels

stolen from motels. I sit and age
as you pack box of books after
box of beautiful books into your car

without help from my back. Sure,
after I finally begged a ride, you
were ready to drive the pastures

of Pennsylvania. We sang the sky blue
between your solid apartment
and our crystallizing future.

You forgot your dishware in a cabinet:
glasses, plates, everything to eat
left in our paper plate hands. We bit

our flesh, making love without wait
on the other’s tongue. We hardly
left the state before life turned away

and started breaking politely
into bite sized pieces, each
tasting more and more like history.

–Dan Nowak,
Of a Bed Frame
Accents Publishing

More from Of a Bed Frame and Dan Nowak:

Dan Nowak’s first book, Recycle Suburbia, won the 2007 Quercus Review Poetry Series Award. He also has a chapbook, Burning the Arson Dictionary: Poems for Thomas McGrath published by RockSaw Press. Dan is co-founder and co-editor ofImaginary Friend Press and an editor for New Sins Press. Dan lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and enjoys that Lakefront Brewery is less than a mile from his home.