Under The Rug
Stuffed Monkey Farewell
From pacific station
I walked the muddy banks of the San Lorenzo
Climbed down to the place where
We used to kiss beneath the bridge
And I cradled your one last thing
I’d kept for all these years
Felt tears roll into my beard
As it spindled away
Into the rivermouth
Then out to sea
I bit off my fingernail
When I saw its bobbing monkeytail below the scum
Sent a piece of sensitive mail
To the wrong place
Watched the mailman drive away
I dove in with my hoodie on and my hood filled up with goo
A piece of kelp got my leg and held me until I resigned my shoe
I met eyes with a passing gull, laughing from
Up above
And as if in some laugh-track bit, it snatched up its tail
And then it vanished
Behind the bluff
Fate herself had phoned me with an order to let ya go
But I lay there, unmoving, even so