You & I agree to meet again at Gramp’s bar
where we sit in the murky wind under a
question-mark sky & drink chardonnay as the
slow-motion afternoon storms brew. We
share small talk, stare at ESPN talking heads
& highlights on big screens during
conversational caesuras until we’re buzzed
enough to discuss the therapy & life failures
that became arrows leading us to parenting
plans, alimony payments & quit-claim deeds.
We return to our (now your) house. I haven’t
been gone long, but this living room seems
emptier despite its parts intact: TV, sofa,
IKEA coffee table, faux wood shelves, the
ironically named loveseat where we sit
ironing out still more details drinking still
more wine. Our (now your) dogs bark at
something only they see outside, yelping over
‘60s bossa nova oozing from a satellite music
channel we never listened to together. In this
room, I’m a subtitled movie, voices distorted
over the music, your perfume sour like the
kids’ milk sweating on the countertop. We
stumble into our (now your) cobwebbed bed
& have broken divorce sex, but before I can
figure out what just happened, you rise, dress
& grab your keys. My phone tells me its
4:30pm as our (now your) front door slams.
David Colodney is a poet living in Boynton Beach, Florida. He is the author of Gen X Redux, forthcoming in 2026 from Main Street Rag Publishing, and the chapbook Mimeograph (Finishing Line Press, 2020). A Best of the Net and four-time Pushcart nominee, his work has appeared in multiple journals. David currently serves as an associate editor of South Florida Poetry Journal and is an ardent supporter of Liverpool Football Club. If you are looking for him, he can often be found at the Lion & Eagle Pub watching Liverpool matches.