“Thirty more years of mobility with you”                                     is what my partner said she wants a statement about                  how to sustain common pleasure like “having a Coke with you” for middle-                                                        aged queers with chronic pain compiled griefs the thing is                                                                         pleasure is harder to come by as I was doing my lunges                                     she stood before me with a scored mango each time I lungedforward my knee brushed her crotch and she shoved a piece into my mouth. We rescued                  three more plants from the hardware store I overheard her telling her family that I am                                     their mom now I give them all of the attention I used to give                                                        to my dogs before the collective sadness of their lives waiting for me                                     to come home from work and then their deaths                                                                            became too much.                                      The newest heart-leaf shifts position everyday like a sundial                   or a spirit board today it’s spooning another leaf it has been raining for daysand is predicted for nine more with more wildfire smoke coming down from Canada                                      the next two days I saw a black and white catwalk through our backyard and thought it was a cow                   as I would see grazing on a faraway hill from the admin building window                                      during a meeting today I heard cows mooing                                                        and kept craning my neck to see them some interactions                   with humans in a workplace can be bad but always provideuseful information what a dangerous position it is                   when we can’t say what we know and see                                      I have to carry the hermitage                                                        inside of me until I can return to it                                                                            I have to carry the cow.                   Midweek I worried about life endingin sorrow due to the growing impossibility of the workplace for an old                                      poet the growing problem of outgrowing a style for the hundredth                                                        time but suddenly reinvention is elusive I took a sick day                                                                            and wore a Turkish towel and flip-flops watched                                                                                            birds peck down the suet put salve and a heating pad on my                                                                            neck I checked on the postponed publication date of Lynn                                                        Lonidier’s selected poems she said she wanted to be a happy Hart                                      Crane declared herself a Gertrude Stein without moneyat the age of 56 she jumped off a cliff and was found dead on a beach in San                   Francisco. I read it was after being laid off these                                      anecdotal shreds about the job lives of poets fill mewith elaborate yearnings to know more                  “If and if I ever was published and never was again                   I’d dwell in a corny posthumous belief in a fine old house                   for turning out fictions.”What my history shows is that I’m a company guy                                      but one who complains I want the company to be more worthy                                                        of my devotion but the company doesn’t have human attributes                                      what I tolerate is between me and my idea of the gods                                                                            today I am in my underwear and flip-flops waiting                                      for a new style my apparent comfort is deceptive imagine boxing                                                                            gloves punching back memories of suburban youth                                                                                               and everything that was done in support of me                                                                            becoming like everyone around me how out of the blue that fantasy creeps                                                                                                                   up and overlays itself on aging queer life.