Schemer by Matthew Milia

My scheme
Was to redeem
Every previous scheme I had pulled

I thought
I had my shot
That's why I bought
Something for you to hold

Till I came
Back in the name
That I had when I started out

But I can't recall how it went
Or what it was all about

So I go power-walking with my mom
Through the first profile she had
On AOL-dot-com
And I may as well
Sign on

My dreams are of old teams
For which I warmed the bench on
The game where my grandparents came

And Halloween decorations mean
A lot to me
To the spot in me
That's hotter than the autumn sun
But colder than the autumn's shoulder
When the fall winds run

I stapled my fate to skateboard kicktails
And rash attachments on desperate emails
I'm drowning in dry cleaning tags and safety pins

Do you think it's something you still can make matter?
I wake up every Sunday in the pancake batter
With all my soccer trophies just posed like mannequins

Twenty short years
In my narrow hallway house

The televisions muted
I've booted any spouse
On an anniversary that's hinging off the door
The furnace is a nursery
For the only child we bore

And how it
Roars with old spit
On the carpet I installed

With my knees
Was it centuries
Ago when oh, how we crawled?

When I came
In with the name
That you gave me when I woke

Gently, evidently
All our time was just some kind of joke

My scheme
Was to redeem
Every previous scheme I had pulled

Appears on Alone at St. Hugo