--WHY DON’T YOU COME A LITTLE CLOSER

 

                                               Vintage

           I miss your dirty sweater, the Goodwill one you got for five bucks, the one you claimed Joni Mitchell wore at Woodstock, or maybe it was Joan Jett, but damn you wore that sweater out. 

I miss the baby vomit Lucas would spew on it, how the puke would harden into daisy patterns, but then you’d wash it and wear it again until we had Abby, who threw up more than any baby has ever upchucked in the history of babies.

I remember how the fibers pilled around your perfect ass, how you’d wear that sweater first thing in the morning with nothing underneath and we’d have to do it on the couch or counter or standing up like corn stalks in the kitchen, me hard as a snow shovel, drooling on your sagging neckline, the yarn filthy as ever smelling like something full of life.

All these years now and it’s the one thing I’ve never thrown out, that dirty sweater. 

When I went to see you at the cemetery yesterday, I pulled it out of my duffel and left it on your headstone. Tiny flecks of ancient vomit or sex juice flicked off it when a sudden gust came up as two robins danced by, making love in the air entangled awkwardly, yet beautiful in its own way.