Cardboard Tubes

For toilet paper & small unopened buds attached to the ends of granny stems;

For paper towels & spiny mice or other rodents with their man-like little hands;

For the twin miracles of corrugation & cylindricality;

For countless arts & crafts in the manner of the ancient Phoenicians;

For this woman & that one who never replaced the roll & slept in even on Monday;

For a New Wave band of the 80s I can barely remember, for Billy Idol, for Billy Pilgrim;

For my mother on Father’s Day & my Father on his birthday April 30th, 1944;

For waterslides, Kim Deal, & Juicy Fruit;

For the subtle but convincing manner of the red-headed one, soaked with wine & menthol;

For the reminder: these tubes continually dropt on the ground, embroidered with the monogram of a different daily deity;

For the rejoinder that someone loves us all even in a dirty bathroom with a floor big enough for dancing;

For the dancing partner whom I, awkward, never managed to dip;

For Julia (in her silks), Kristin (in her silks), Kristin (in her combat boots & dirty pants), Josh (in his good will), Nick (in his carefully managed anger), & all the lot of you;

For the small man who never leaves his house & the aesthetic pleasure their perfect shapes bring him;

For the coffee that comes in cups of cardboard which are really flared tubes with a closed end;

For their sight-giving properties, best in evidence atop promontories from which we see & see & see then bury our faces in our sister’s best white dress;

For three thousand miles, a million hours & whatever else between us.