SONNET WITHOUT BEN KOPEL IN IT

Dear Ben Kopel: I saw you walk Denver

in your Cheap Sunglasses and Rock-n-Roll Shoes

a-saunter all Could-Give-a-Fuck—Ben Kopel you

didn’t see me and I didn’t wave

turning left onto Iliff—though I yelled “Ben Kopel!

Ben Kopel!” to the air. You disappeared

on University toward Downtown, Levi and

plaid, unshaven, some eight inches taller.

Disproportional in swagger and stare

with a beat like a cop on the hometown ground

I once stomped, longing myself rhythmical, sound—

O Ben Kopel there’s a halfass wannabe Ben Kopel here

where sun glares off overpriced loft windows and mourning

doves call into downdrafts inscrutably thin.

Floaty Pen

I know what we should do I think

while listening to you tell me

about your best friend who rides gondolas

in virtual Venice

with his internet girlfriend.

You explain the absurdity of it while

I imagine using you as a desk upon which

to compose my sonatas.

One woman stands on the middle of the pool table.

She tells us about our speedy journey to Hell

& another sits beside me

interrupting our dinghy ride to say

It’s just so hard sometimes.

She smells of wet wool

& builds igloos for a living

has on other nights sung about dancing

with falcons: staggery waltzes. They lean

on your arm with just the right amount of

pressure, secure but not too committed.

I recently saw an igloo. It looked real

& the gray around your temples

looks real & that must go into

the composition too.

And ice luges, bonfires, us

leaping, naked falconers, over them.

The brutality & indelicacy of

holding tightly to our whiskey-on-rocks

so as not to hold too tightly to one another

leaving talon marks on something not ours.

When I woke up this afternoon

I found a souvenir pen—

its tiny gondolier rolling disinterested

from end to end; the only thing we thought

was worth the money.