New Yorker: Poem du jour

Slow Drag Blues
by Kevin Young

I don’t believe in sex
after marriage.
       My wife does, just
not with me.
       I plead the Fifth
of whiskey. I am close
to perfecting a theory
       of forgettability.
Grief a dog
       that keeps dogging me—
Good Grief,
       I say. It’s me
he’s teaching to beg—
my next anniversary
       is newspaper, yesterday’s—
lining my cage—
       Tomorrow the day
I hope to learn to stay.