With its empty punishment
of bright light and bird songs
mingling with a hangover 
I earned the night before.

Nothing in the cupboard
except coffee without
the sweetness of sugar
his lover called poison.

The fridge almost empty,
but a few stale doughnuts
the microwave failed to
give any semblance of life.

Yet the house was clean.
His lover had left it 
sparkling like a diamond
on a young stripper’s navel.

He checked the want ads
he’d circled with the vague interest
he could barely sustain before
circling the next one.

The apartment seemed empty 
without his lover or her clothes 
scattered on the furniture or floors
as he stared at the mirror

Where she loved to write
You’re an asshole! in lipstick
after an argument knowing
it would be the first thing he’d see

After she had left for work
before the bright morning light
or the little birds roused him
and he opened the first bottle.

– Rp Verlaine