I am 42

 All my favorite baseball players

are fat and dead

 

I wish I could apologize to the girlfriends I had at 19

 

I tasted like cigarettes and didn't know where the clitoris was

 

I still don't entirely

 

But age has taught me to try

 

I have a vague idea

like remembering an AOL password

or the name of that restaurant in Spain we went to

the second day of our honeymoon

 

I have a wonderful wife, I have a wonderful daughter, 

I want for nothing but scotch I can't afford

 

No TV studio would buy my story

 

I asked the doctor if I can continue eating out of a trash can

 

He said no and recommended 5 ounces of notebook paper

and 20 gallons of water a day

 

If you season it right it's fine

I lied

it isn't

 

Sometimes I eat cold pizza after 11pm

I convince myself it's a smaller piece when I record the calories

don't tell Doctor Stevens

 

The other day I made a Seinfeld reference 

to the 21-year-old cashier at the liquor store

she stared at me blankly 

 

I've still got that edge baby

 

© 2023 Lee Kitzis 

 

Our Song

10 years ago
we slow danced to “our song”
because you and I
were supposed to
you looked gorgeous
I looked passable
it was Billie Holiday
neither of us remember
what the song was
just that we were the only ones that danced
the entire time
as people watched and smiled
it was a minute-and-a-half
we picked it because it was the shortest
and you kept asking “is it over?”
and I kept saying “soon sweetie”
and it was you and I
and 100 people that drank the wine
and didn’t touch the beer
and it was awkward and exhilarating  

10 years later
none of that matters
as we slow dance in our kitchen
to a song we don’t even know to begin with
that could go on forever for all we care
covered in flour
our hands up
and clasped the same
a little girl in the middle
and it’s you and I and her
and it’s our song
in an empty room
and we’re still the only ones dancing
for ten more years
and ten years after that

© 2021 Lee Kitzis

For George Floyd

They knelt on the fruit
until it bled a nightmarish jazz
into the concrete
like Ornette Coleman’s dying cat
then used the pulp
to line the stripes and the juice
to spray the stars and wrapped
the poor in it ‘til they couldn’t breathe
suffocating at half mast
cocooned in medicine they could not afford
skewered by the needles they would never see
and told those watching it was the Mexicans
and told them it was the blacks
and told them it was the Chinese
and told them it was the whites
just some of them the ones that paint
and have Pintrest accounts and
smoke better weed and when
they couldn’t see them
they believed them
and then they wrapped that flag tight
even tighter this time
while the invisible screamed
“I can’t breathe!” inside
and w/ the strength of a million
cleanly pleated god fearing knees
they knelt on the fruit again

© 2020 Lee Kitzis

The Sickies

I tell you
we can’t go to the museum
cus everyone has “the sickies”

so we pile
in the car
and head to the beach
to collect rocks
intrepid archeologists
in 30 degree weather

You load my pockets
and yell at me
when I skip a few of our finds
into Lake Superior
and pretend you’re an airplane
while your mother smiles
at the crashing waves
and daydreams of Obama
and going out for boulevardiers
and charcuterie plates

on the ride home
I hold in my pee
(the bathrooms at the beach were closed cus of the sickies)
we listen to the Frozen soundtrack
and discuss dinner
maybe tacos maybe chicken tenders maybe both
as we ride past the houses lined with rainbows
out of the end
and into the beginning

© 2020 Lee Kitzis

As I Carry My Kid to Bed and Think of Dead Friends

I used to pick you up
and carry you to bed

Now I hoist you
your long toddler legs
dragging across the sheets
your curls in my face
they smell like a daughter's head
dirt and imagination
the opposite of the world we live in

The bad old days
the salad days are gone
my friends are dying
drinking scotch
listening to the Pogues
in a soccer hooligan bar
beyond thought and matter

I social distance
from the moon I used to howl at
stop at one glass of wine
and switch to tea

what a fucking dad I've become

I will not leave it like this for you
Cecilia

We will have the president
that unites this country
gay, compassionate, shoots missiles
from his eyes, is also a she,
plays third base w/ a good slash line,
hits for power, a communist in a
Gucci belt w/ the head of Merle Haggard,
knows 12 languages, fluent in
America, the art of love, diplomacy,
and Star Trek bar trivia

I lay you in your bed
cover you with your Paw Patrol stuffies:
Chase, Skye, Carl, Slippery Jean,
green helmet guy, something something

What a fucking dad I've become

Goodnight, Cecilia

Dream those dreams
of dirt and imagination

and goodnight, Cal

who's now the dream

drunk on Laphroaig

as well dressed as they come

© 2020 Lee Kitzis

Motherfucker (A Poem)

Motherfuckers
don’t know
they’re motherfuckers
that’s why
they’re motherfuckers

A few
are lucky enough
to look in the mirror
at their motherfuckin’ face
and go my god
what have I motherfuckin’ done?
I’ve been a motherfucker
this whole time

but most
go on bein’ motherfuckers

Some stay small
bein’ motherfuckers in customer service lines
a fistful of expired coupons for another store

Some rise to the heights of motherfuckery
and become president of the motherfuckers
MFOTUS

There are motherfuckers in Brazil
There are motherfuckers in the states
There are motherfuckers in France eating pasteurized cheese

There are Yanomami motherfuckers
There are Inuit motherfuckers
There are motherfuckers in lost tribes in the Kalahari
they send out for water and that come back with a handful
of rocks someone told them they were magical
and could produce water and the elders the women
the children the camels all go

This motherfucker

You see
a motherfucker isn’t a swear word

It’s a state of mind

It sets off fireworks at 3 AM in December

It doesn’t wipe the stationary bike at the gym down
when it’s done with it

It blames Mexicans instead of banks

It cages children

It steals from charity

It’s in the White House

eatin’ a cheeseburger
in a tanning bed

like a little bitch

© 2019 Lee Kitzis

Haiku for my Daughter

Go the fuck to sleep
Please wake up I miss you so
Go the fuck to sleep

© 2017 Lee Kitzis