PRIOR CONVICTIONS, OR HE’D BE IN A CAR

Fetish properties are not unlike porn.
-- Nick Hornby

I call her a whore because I’m up late.
At least I’m not him, I say.
I quote Hornby to pass the flu,
rearrange beliefs like construction.

I can feel the ring on my finger,
the emptiness of my cup and
the cold shallow call of the wind.

Time takes us to England,
it takes us through the pages
of the Sunday Times –
it questions distance,
the weight of loneliness.

I have a friend in Chicago
who shares this illness
and the desire to collect
folk art, to converge strangers,

to solve pop songs like a puzzle.

Life becomes this interview
where we define
pop music and sports fiction.
God reading every word,
turning every page –
discovering our confusion.