For dents in the bed we don’t want to leave, 
and the coffee that makes us do it regardless, 
let’s celebrate. 

For the grey clouds monochroming my window, 
let’s praise the moisture and the open-mouthed 
ground.

For the leaves overlooked by the wind, the dust 
it loves to chauffer around instead, let’s admire
weightlessness, 

for what on this earth is not trying to break
its addiction to gravity? Speaking of tethers, 
let’s circle 

back to the coffee, celebrate the refilled cup—
every sip bringing warmth and yes, undernotes
of bitterness. 

Let’s celebrate the creaks under our feet 
and in our knees, how ache, that neglected 
lover

kisses every jointed crease on sleepless nights, 
a dedication that can feel exactly like pain.  
Let’s toast 

and cheer and huzzah for every letter used
in blue, in fork, in Wednesday or mundane, 
rolling them 

like calligraphy over our tongues. For what,
tell me, what’s better to celebrate than this? 
                        

because I live in a valley of bright advertisements & shining
disbelief, because of our stop & go, stop & no freeway going 
direct to any where, because we say the 405, the 10, the 101 
to make up for it, because blue and grey skies muddy
water & not a fallen drop in reservoirs, because shattered
glass pools like tar on every driven-over surface, because not
even unnamed weeds are native to the gaps they flower,
because Modelo bottle caps & e-cigarette tips choke the gutters 
while rats nest in dead brown palm fronds like high-rises,  
because in these streets of dust ablution only sounds like absolution, 
& solving becomes sobbing, because I title my failures & call them poems, 
because born in the desert, I’ve learned to dam every thirst inside me. 
                        

I know too much
of slow withering 
to enjoy the thirst
of snipped young 
buds that struggle
to flower despite 
the shears and all 
we’ve done just to
capture a few days
we’ve already lost