Read some Al Purdy, it's healthy

Clumps of Brown Hair


When it's late
And I remember her face,
Excited, flashing under
The come-and-go streetlights
Flaring past
At one hundred miles per hour
As I try to rush her home on time,
What am I supposed to say to her now?
A cold handshake and wish her the best?

Those kind words
Would come out layered
Thick in honey and venom,
A spit in the face wrapped
With a crinkled red bow,
An offered hand, septic.

That would be a disservice
To the years that slipped down
The drain, staring in the mirror
And cutting my hair
at one in the morning,
Trying to get each trace of
Months-old smell gone
With the buzz of a razor.

That ride to her house
I lied to her and said
That desk clerks die.
Clumps of brown hair
On white tile floor
And the clerks still
Have their wooden desks.