Spare Cupholder

by Michael Cooper

She absorbs the tea thru holes in her palms—a skeleton
key wrapped in a blanket
you wrestle with newspaper
paper cuts and runny ink
tattoos gathered downtown spilling
   you—a fade away jump shot
   into a beer pong cup—my head

grins from her wicker linen basket. I’ve come to tell
you about leaves
in the gutter where you found two eye
teeth as the curtains push the blue
   night open—the car door swings she
   falls out   smelling of a different

hymn.  Burned by your cigarettes.  The abandoned
hubcap holds summer
in its upturned rim—I drink what
the police
offered: dot 3 brake fluid from this red cup
   made of plastic—I sit—cuffed on a curb
   outside my own house.