Grey day, interior (Don Deli)

I don't like this
direction but it's a game
i've invented with no
losers (or winners either,
i suppose)
i call it tying myself
up in knots-- it's a way
of my life
contrasting
with my uncluttered apartment and
a way of making nonsense
out of the sensible--it's an
inheritance, i suppose (as i
come from a long and proud
line of worriers and tie-ourselves-up-in-knotters)
so partly i blame that,
partly my own
vulgar fantasies of love (or whatever
they're calling it these days), partly
i blame the way you
know just the right combos of
words, gestures (unconscious, like mine,
so i don't really blame you)

and now,
with a cold
parking lot and the Starbucks sign
glowing green across the street
the truth of it is that
for a month after we met
i kept forgetting your name,
nothing personal, but i
guess that, like you,
i'm tired
of the madness, the knots,
the framelessness, the patterns,
the layers upon layers,

and whatever we used to be,
this knotted-up feeling cancels it out

so tell someone who
cares less
who doesn't need
to write about you--
take a million lovers
back to your too-small bed

and call me again, if
you want
from wherever it is you
end up,

if/when your fingers
get more knot-freeing nimble.

(I know you said you wouldn't,
and i know i told you
not to,

but i'll keep my number the same
just in case.)