Your roommate meets us with a mixed
drink, the screen door opens, collapses
shut on a room of your new friends, sauced,
but still discussing queer theory. I hover
near a record player, wait for the pattern
on my jacket to earn favor like your ripped
jean shorts. I can see you’re all wrapped
up in Wisconsin, with a circle of love mixed
into a new park and taking a class for pottery
again, where you met these friends and collapsed
into the pocket of a deep couch. It’s an honor
here, seeing you steeped in a fresh sauce,
friends all wearing the best shirts I ever saw.
A yellow chest with several thin green lines ripped
across, it’s second hand (how the collar hovers
above his shoulders bent), but any good shirt’s mixed.
You plan a game because the party could lapse
into boredom; cards are set out in a pattern
on the table. The girl with the writing pad turns
to a new page not covered in pizza sauce,
and we number off, quickly collapse
into teams. I scream, seeing a pair ripped
from the table’s center, asking what the max
of points is before the game starts over.
We play a few times, hands and eyes hover
idly, each team obsessed with their own patterned
set. The gang gets restless so you mix
some exotic shots, add a lot of soy sauce
to be funny. No one can tell because it’s wrapped
in whiskey’s stench and color all collapsed
together. Of course it sucks, and cold lips
buck the liquid, some spitting mist that hovers
for a moment. I catch your face rapt
in joy, just from watching a pattern
get sawed
off, tossed back in, mixed.