untitled

there is a song.
i remember the day i wrote it.
the piano faced the quilt
and the sun was on my right shoulder.

i saw two men outside
with two infants
in the little kangaroo pouches.
they seemed happy,
comfortable,
free.
i thought they were together
and had perhaps adopted the babies.
lovers and their new children.

i wrote the song then.
it was brilliant, even i thought so.
the chords so heavy.
the melody like a rocket.
i loved it without thinking,
that instant.

afterwards i looked out and saw
the men and the babies
with two women.
their wives? more likely.
disillusionment can be a bitch.
most often in retrospect.

i remember the night i wrote
the alternate version
to that song.
draped in your hoodie
like a child in a collapsed tent,
smoking a black,
walking to buy a midnight snack alone.

it's funny because
the new words came so fast--
faster than the old ones.
but the old ones came from reality
and these new words were from somewhere else.
a place i could almost make out in my mind.
a place i thought i might be someday, i guess.

i came back with food.
i slept in your bed.
the new lyrics were an omen
that i didn't understand
because it was premature.

i wonder if i wrote both of them
because i loved the song that much.
because i knew i would want to
sing it forever and ever,
whether you came or went.