(another one from my book: The Aftermath, etc. by Get in the car, Helen–published by Nate Jordon/Monkey Puzzle Press)
walking down the same alleys we used to walk through before you left me
I walk down the one
that shares dirt
with a church
the exact spot where we both stopped
one night
long before this nightmare
had ever heard of such things
as dreaming
coming home from the bars
3 blocks from our apartment
surrounded by the chocolate syrup
of night
and you had to piss
and I had to piss
so we both did
what we needed to do
which back then was the same thing
we both had to piss
so we did
you on one end of the block
and me somewhere in the middle
that’s when I saw the cloaked man
appear like a fucked up Geiko commercial
from the shadows
he was a cop
and I heard him say something to you
that I can’t remember
your pants pulled up real fast
during the exchange
and then he walked over to me
as I re-sheathed my own
weiner
shaking his head
as he quoted me the current
laws against public urination
I tried to explain to him
that we lived only a couple
of blocks away
and that we weren’t drunk driving
we were just drunk walking
and that there was nobody else
around
except him
and surely he’d been in a public
bathroom before
and witnessed complete strangers
urinating
ergo: nobody gets hurt
he wanted to lecture me
on the sins of peeing on a church
but I rebuked his verbal charges
insisting, which was true
that I wasn’t peeing
‘on’ a church
I was peeing ‘next to’
a church
and then I started laughing
and he started laughing
and then just like you’ve done
now
all these many months later
he turned his back
on the whole thing
and let us go
Multiverse Johnson 