The old light of the stars
is brittle to breaking
under tonight's deserted curve.
My thoughts slur away...

Wishes wheel out
over the tree line
while radio eyes
hush to the dial.

Cars keep their grip
on the dying street -
my thoughts fracture...
I'm telling you - it still hurts.

Go for a walk
in the unbroken
Saturday, the trees
sling themselves
at the upper blue,
the ash wall rustles
and the russet fawn noses
the cherry branch snarl.

A stillness about the hands,
near where the wasp
was singing. A stillness
on your side of the world,
where the new stars
are out roaming again.
A stillness broken when
the wind strums us
with its wild comb of fingers.

In January, sleep packed
its suitcase and left out the window.

I patrolled the rooms,
waiting for it to return.

I became friends
with the **** tin moon,

I found leaves of tears
inside pillow cases,

I sat with a flowering aloe.
Nothing brought sleep back,

not even the song I found
along my body in the broken bath,

not the poems that dripped
from my fingers after washing

with charcoal, not even
the green prayer of the couch.  

It was only when I rejected sleep
that it returned with laughter in its hand.

The heater lopes
behind me, so
I don't hear you
rugging your way
up the stairs
with your gun.

When you point
it towards me,
the lights switched
on yesterday.

I followed him
step for step
for eighteen blocks.
He vanished
into a pool hall
called Pop's.
When he came out,
I was waiting for him
with a hand full of

The following is an account of
expenses in connection
with the Underwood investigation.

Expense account item #1:
$24, cab fare to your office.
Case of Jane Underwood,

Seattle, not seen
the last eight days.
Insurance policy on

her: $10 million.
I took the case.
I cocked my hat

low over my eyes,
cigarette behind the ear.
Expense account item #2:

$322.74, airfare to Seattle.
I interviewed the family,
the friends, the husband -

they all had alibis -
& also the man
she was seeing on the sly.

Expense account item #3:
$33.08, two packs of cigarettes,
a pack of gum, and a beer

at the neighborhood bar
where I watched Jake Wilson -
the Other Man in the picture.

Expense account item #4:
$29.90, cab fare from the hospital
where Wilson just gave it up.

I found him folded under
a neon sign by a cheap hotel.
I didn't see where the shots came from.

Someone wants Underwood
the stay missing, very missing.
Expense account item #5:

$120, a new coat, the old one
has bullet holes. More close calls.
Digging around, I learn

Wilson was knee deep
in counterfeiting Franklins.
Crowbar to the basement door

of the house he was renting
under a different name,
I found the missing woman,

cuffed to a radiator, mostly fine.
She found out about the funny money,
threatened to go to the cops

unless Wilson cut her in.
She was over her head.
But then - so was I -

who shot Wilson?
Expense account item #6:
$75, marriage license, King County.

Jane Underwood and I are
running away together
with the bad hundreds.

Time to end one of these
stories the easy way.
Tired of Hartford,

tired of heart's noir,
consider me retired.
But then, holding her hand

driving to Los Angeles,
her purse falls open
& the gun that killed Wilson

falls into the footwell.
It was all a setup. It always is.
Her hand gets cold, tight,

real tight. The ride
is about to get... difficult.
If only she knew, if only she knew

how many times I'd seen this
twist, how many women,
how many guns, how many

Wilsons had fallen to the ground
under how many cheap
blinking blue broken neon signs.

You're sleeping in,
little dove.
Let the day begin
with sleeping in -
It's no sin,
my love.
You're sleeping in,
little dove.