Country Music Love

You are clearly preoccupied with love. See the way you sift
through the lint from your purse, searching for the backing of
an earring. See the runway of broken leaves and bread crumbs
collecting under the emergency brake in your car. Messy, messy.
You wear your dirty denim jacket to the doctor’s office, you
push your nail beds back until they bleed. You fill your bathtub
every second evening, pour large goblets of red wine, sit on
the sill of the tub naked, holding the wine, waiting for the
water to cool. (You always run your baths too hot.) The day
begins with a whisper and all day you whisper to yourself. No
jazz, it hurts your head. No, you want a music that permits
the swagger of your heart, its lazy eye, its unkempt hairdo.