MY BABY'S BIRTHDAY

The Betty Poems

is coming up
and in some way,
anyway,
I want to be there--
in person, in voice,
in spirit--
to celebrate it
with her.
Two people in love
should be in love
on days of love--
marriage
sickness
birth
death
Ben Casey
infinity
--and the dross
and dullness
of life.
But we're still
on the outs.
We're behind bars,
murdering
our gift;
we sniff
around our degenerate
lives and invite
misery
to climb aboard
and travel well-worn
arteries and veins
of hummingbirds
inside the cat's
mouth.
Crapshooters
and night crawlers;
pederasts of the cloth
and women angels
of the night singing
prayers of the luck
to the luckless.

As the needle inches
its way toward full
it implies the other
empty. We believe
we have just so much
to give before
it runs out. So,
we remain,
on the outs.
A concession
is worse than death:
somebody wins
somebody loses.
You might think
at sixty-five
I wouldn't give
a fuck.
You'd be
wrong.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013