You will forgive me

 - Or not -

For chickening out on you.

Words can kill

Or throw you out of your apartment.

I didn’t know!

Now I know!

I never know things,

Unless they

Run me over

Like that Beetle

When I was nineteen.

This wiser,

Older me

Now lives in Pilsen,

Alone.

But I’m considering

A sugar glider.

Except that I don’t want

To feed him crickets.

Today I subscribed to The Paris Review

And made ice cubes shaped like apples.

I feel ten years younger 

And my new lover was born in 1984.

He’s the gentlest viking I know.