poached eggs

i knew you so many times

in dark dining rooms with concrete floors and every whisper bouncing off the walls

on stuffy kitchen lines, hungover, poaching eggs, and sweating

holding off throngs of people with a scarf of printed tickets around my neck

sucking down cowboy killers in the company of industrial dumpsters

seated across from red, tear-stained faces in offices the size of closets

every version of you

knew every version of me

and i locked the back door every night

assured that i’d always return in the morning

but on a march afternoon

gazing through the sliding glass window

i watched the benches empty for the last time

knowing that someone else would unlock the back door tomorrow

for such a long time

i yearned to feel that sweat again

i swore to come back

when i had made my money

when i was the man you made me

and i may always smile when i smell the blanching of potatoes

while cooking breakfast for the children you helped me raise

or when i hear the ice rattling in the tin

while making a dirty martini for the wife you introduced me to

but i don’t need you anymore

you raised me better than that