torn hotleather jankmobile-‘n-drive-thru
Bojangles or Cookout milkshake late nite
how will i keep remembering

i dunno so far it’s like an oldshoe
boxfull of love
letterstuff or songs you hate

when the night DJ takes em for spins
on the throw backradio backroads
they’re from toolong

ago-‘n-you don’t want someone
bringing up what got dead-‘n-buried out
of the ground to spook youJesus

the city is all grimylike
a ghost you love
it since you don’t feelpure

or cleanneither tho
from faraway you don’t see
it waitdid you only imagine it

goes like this: you get
dirty-‘n-then cleanas
embalming til you wishyou

were dirty again justenough
i dunno now ifwhen i was young
i was more sad or more beautiful

how will i keep remembering
if you growup and get too
big-‘n-pretty too how can i say don’t

you go i’ll go
sing my sadlittlelone somehome
townsong on my ownsome

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—Alec Lowman is a native of Durham, North Carolina and a graduate of Princeton University’s Program in Creative Writing. His work has previously appeared in Poetry Quarterly and on his parents’ fridge. In addition to poetry, he writes fiction, love letters, and to-do lists.

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