glint and reading the papers
		----------------------------------------------------------

		lunchtime -- the glint off the mint
		reminds me of the hard candy we would suck on
		carelessly sucking while chewing the fat
		day's facts factoids opinions

		this was when i still read the papers
		you still write for the paper

		now urgency bonds with desperation -- a quaint placebo
		why it used to be that we felt only
		the blithe disregard for time -- what drug that was!

		whereas time's passing is oppressive to me now...

		to me who is not doing nearly enough 
		to feel busy
		or to have any time at all...

		jesus fucking christ:

		i am only two or three things away from soundness
		as measured by my loving sound-off parents
		really i am -- trust me on this -- the hard gleam
		of the mint reminds me of you
		who got away but lives in a collage of dreams
		in my head -- like the mint still apparently
		red and white but really becoming mauve shades of blue

		still reading the papers


			Marek Lugowski
			7 May 1999
			Chicago, Illinois