Nursing a ginger beer, staring down at the beige apartment carpet. I got a new couch, did I tell you that? I mean it's old but it's new to me. Even new cars have a few hundred miles on them, driven from the factory to the lot and all that. Thinking about all the guns you throw at problems, how they clatter on the linoleum, how you're desperate for one to misfire. That's just the movies, you know. Cigarette in my right hand. I only smoke in poems. Call me pretentious. Suddenly it's raining and that sibilance of the sheet of thousands of points of water succumbing to gravity puts me in a warm hug trance. Ash from the cig, burns the carpet.

jcb