Weston Cutter

It's just another hour lost to darkness, another snatch of rock
and roll overheard after the new year's begun and Clarity's
the name of the last song I paid a dollar to hear between bouts
across a table from one more woman whose mouth
I stared into looking for blue skies as she said my name, sure
mouths full of blue skies mattered, sure things mattered
at all despite the blurring of February into March, the fact
that Yesterday used to be something I walked away from +
this morning it was the song blasting from the bright yellow truck
stopped in the crosswalk I Beatles-like walked on the way
to buy the cigarettes I swore I'd quit smoking tomorrow, the day
before: what I want isn't even to smoke, no binary, but
the smear of it, the both—                    I want to believe

which is its own sort of smoke, want to believe an hour
sucked from a clock and fed to daylight will make
any difference, to believe that the friend's wife who took her son
trick-or-treating last year on her own Halloween birthday
was right to fill a sippy cup with vodka, to be mom
and other, she watched tipsy as her mini Batman scurried
through overlapping swathes of darkness + light + returned
to her, face full of smile + pillowcase full of candy he still
could barely believe just got handed out: what I need
is just enough meaning for the jam to stick to the toast
each morning + the coffee machine to do its job so I can
do mine, for the next song I hear to have some swell of guitars
+ a rhythm I can tap my foot to, for the matches I'm handed
with the cigarettes I don't want to want to work just like a new name,
any melody: flash brightness, offer old satisfactions again, go dark.