Mutual distrust

Hank once told me that

“Sometimes

The only ones

You can trust

Are the ones

You can’t trust

Because

You always

Know where

They are

coming from,”

He saying this

In the front seat

Of a car

We drove

Up to Simon’s Rock

From New Jersey,

So he could make

up with the girl

He loved

And always thought

I was trying to steal

Only for us

To get so drunk

The most he could

Do was puke on

Her feet

When she yanked

Open the door

To ask,

“What the fuck

Are you two

Doing here?”

Hiding the two of us

From the college

Dictators

Until I could clean him up

And sober up enough

For that long

Lonely road

Home, he spouting

So many

Words of wisdom

We both forgot

By the time we got

Back to Jersey.

Me, remembering

Over the lip of

My hangover

The next day

That one piece of

Advice he’s spouted

Which hit me again

somewhere on the

New York Thruway,

When consciousness

Had left us both

In that dismal limbo

Of self pity

He thinking of his

Rich girl Cynthia

He knew he didn’t deserve

And me thinking

Of the distant

Girl who I thought

He’d tried to steal

And who I didn’t deserve

And neither one

Of us trustworthy

Enough except

To deserve each other,

In mutual distrust.