Cognitive Dissonance in a Sunroom

I have been painting away your memory,

bristles colliding to canvas,

metaphorically clenching

as I sip the beer that is so innocent

and proud

on the morning table.

The rose on the table

is no gray rose of the south,

but my beer is a hideous redneck,

and it tastes of piss and change.

But I drink it.

I drink it.

(As though God were in liquid form)

And you are lost in my acrylic

like my humble esophagus

rejecting the pain,

rejecting your liquid antidotes

like hormone driven fish

swimming through the Zodiac,

a spirituality quest.

I have read my horoscope

daily since we split.

That is what they all call

it after all, a split,

like two atoms throwing

darts at one another

in a gurdwara,

like a molecule split

by society’s microscopic blade.

Like two birds on a simple, simple wire.

I paint nothing more than that.

And those goddamn birds

are all that is left of us.

And I choose to sip

the blue-ribboned beer

that has left a ring

of condensation

on my canvas.

I wipe away the ring

like my eternal wedding band,

both as worthless as my art,

and become quite still.