Recommence

Reconvene, slot into the other life
I don't hang out in locker rooms,
I barely shave,
don't know the rituals, I barely want the space.

Old men, splayed in the YMCA, friends gone,
towelling absently, it scans peacockery,
so maybe my mind isn't fully formed. The part that could be,
sloughed off in the 90s, feet still frozen, muddy knees.

I'm not so sure of men, sure of myself,
you know, codes and all that.
What am I supposed to say I don't
care to waste speak, dead air can just be that-
we're passing through so many places this month,
what am I supposed to be bringing, sullenly staring
out of taxi windows,
baroque beauty, just jam for the brioche.

Continental clutter, I appreciate it maybe
as a stoner gag, if someone reframed it,
for the locker room.

There's clever.
          Then there's clever.