Gabriel Birnbaum Mistakes
Fingers on the presidents the money came the money went
I spent it all on things no one could need
A leather coat a powder drug cabs carried me from club to club
I loved the waste like spitting poison blood
Strange
You were with me then
Floating down the avenues
Hair blown round your neck
While I drank the golden afternoons
But I missed you somehow
You were right there in the shape
Of your absence
Now I see the past slip into place
There are no other days
Just like dad said I went flat broke
At thanksgiving the family joke
I held my tongue and chased what I had known
I saw the way the pieces fit
Mistakes I dug my toes between like bricks
To climb how do I know they were mistakes at all
Strange
You were with me then
In the recklessness of days
Hair blown round your neck
A kind reflection on the windowpane
But I missed you somehow
You were right there in the shape
Of your absence
Now I see the past slip into place
There are no other days
