"Tomorrow."
This poem starts off with two lines,
I think are the funniest I've ever written.
I'll read them first, then get them out of the way.
It turns into a much more serious tone
as most of my poems do--
I try to get interested in them by starting them out
in a semi-humorous way trying, I suppose to humor myself
into writing them.
And at any rate, the first two lines are,
"Your best friend is gone, your other friend, too."
[LAUGHTER]
Seems helplessly pathetic to me.
This is for all of you who have only two friends.
[LAUGHTER]
"Tomorrow."
"Your best friend is gone, your other friend, too.
Now the dream that used to turn in your sleep,
like a diamond sails into the year's coldest night.
What did you say?
Or was it something you did?
It makes no difference--
the house of breath collapsing around your voice, your voice
burning, are nothing to worry about.
Tomorrow your friends will come back.
Your moist open mouth will bloom in the glass of storefronts.
Yes.
Tomorrow they will come back and you
will invent an ending that comes out right."
It's sad.