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
