Albert DeGenova
Time to Go
Every café closes –
the waiter finishes his last cigarette
tells you politely to pick-up your lousy notebook,
it’s time to leave.
Sometimes you stand outside back doors
too long, you become a red-check flannel shirt
hanging limp on a hook –
you’re outside the circle of bar jokes
and baptisms and wee-hour
lovemaking. Sometimes it’s just time
to go home. Go Jack, to your cats
where Mamere irons your shirts and makes
your highballs. I think it’s time –
my grass at home needs cutting, the deck
needs cleaning. I have to go now
put this box of sad souvenirs away in my closet
behind the beat old gym shoes and
silk ties fallen from their plastic hangers.
I miss her warm thigh against my hip.
There is pasticcio baking in the oven.
Roses are blooming over my arbor.
About the writer:
Albert DeGenova is an award-winning poet, musician, publisher, and teacher. He is the author of three books of poetry and three chapbooks. His most recent book, Black Pearl poems of love, sex and regret, was released in late 2016 by Purple Flag Press. DeGenova is the founder and co-editor of After Hours magazine, a journal of Chicago writing and art, which launched in June of 2000. He received his MFA from Spalding University in Louisville. DeGenova leads several writing workshops throughout the year including WriteOn Door County and an annual writing week at The Clearing Folk School in Ellison Bay, Wisconsin. He hosts the monthly Traveling Mollys reading series (Oak Park, Illinois) which is now in its 20th year. He is also a blues saxophonist and one-time contributing editor to Down Beat magazine. DeGenova splits his time between Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, and the metro Chicago area.
Image: Untitled by Nathalie von Arx. Fine art photograph. No technical information specified. By permission.
