for Chris

This matriarch mess is all new,
the way these young’uns look at me
and up to me. 
I ain’t nobody’s Mommy. 
Ain’t never been.
Didn’t I used to live in that apartment
right next to city park
and buy six packs and Tvar
for college kids at a steep markup?
Didn’t I used to stay up all night,
standing right next to a stack of speakers
and bouncing till my body 
and my ear drums hummed? 
Shit, I’m coming to grips with the fact

I about half ruined my hearing 
and I’m old enough to have friends 
who lay down and die in their sleep. 
Feels like forever and not so long ago 
we were posted up in bed half naked,
eating fried chicken, watching b-movies.
I wiped my greasy fingers on clean,
white, Holiday Inn sheets 
with wild and reckless abandon. 
Didn’t we used to think 
we were fucking invincible?