Goodbye grandma and grandpa and suckers
in ceramic bowls in their just-cold house where

I came into some Steinbeck and heard word about
the “two-cent plain,” a small glass of seltzer

at the fountain and a single smoke for a penny
less. Goodbye New York, goodbye high school

(though I should’ve said it years ago); goodbye
thick scarves that warm my chin, goodbye smallperson

chance at the lottery win. In an apartment floor
on Warburten we sang “The Weight,” planned the three

-part chorus note and in our rendition humor didn’t pull
us out, half our faces painted and the other half about

to be. The photographs I seized these weeks are grainy
and behind the gloss the noise is coiled. Sam didn’t

snore. Andrew’s voice across the phone was hushed
and pious for the past. He drove. Goodbye pink

backdropped cheetah where we’ll pose until we’re all
too fat for year-end dresses. Goodbye Euclid and Villard

where I didn’t exercise but hoped to hold a face or two.
Goodbye avocadoes posed in pitied winter pyramids

and goodbye to mothers in the store and on the street,
catty-cornered on a mat or in the heated trainstop.

And here’s the last full stop after a half day’s research
into telegrams: I came, I saw, I ate late meals. I ran.