Its faded pink parka,
Stretched tight across its shoulders
Even in the summer twilight,
Crinkles, stale newspapers and plastic bags
Cacophony with the rhythmic
Thud of shopping cart wheels.

Its rotten malt liquor stench--
Astringent ammonia sweat
Runs in rancid rivulets down
Decaying skin on decaying face.
Pimples and pus and
****-notched teeth.

It offers a drink
In exchange for change.
My pockets jangle noisily,
But I offer only empty hands.

Its sun-bleached pink parka
Limply hung over slumped, thin shoulders
Even in the summer twilight,
Crinkles, stale newspapers and plastic bags
Dissonance with the jarring
Rattle of shopping cart wheels.

Its rank malt liquor stench—
Astringent ammonia sweat
Runs in rancid rivulets down
Decaying skin on decaying face.
Pimples and pus and
****-notched teeth.

It offers a drink
In exchange for change.

My watch has never been more riveting.

I want it to be night.
I want it to be raining.

Sitting in the stale car, looking through the rain-glossed windows
The raindrops cut through the thin steam emanating from the headlights and dapple in the glow

The rain shivers through my jacket;
Sleeps against my skin

Add: the cold plastic steering wheel, cracked by time and use
Add: the dead air of the car, increasingly humid
Add: the faint sound of our breathing
Add: the quickly fogging glass

The roof is alive with the pummeling, dancing drops and their reflection from the grim black steel and the memories of summer still living in the peeling paint and the time that we sat on your car and dented it but we told your mom it was a falling branch

These memories die into a regular, irregular cut-time autumn jig
I try to sync, but only sink.

You've found the key.

The car starts and we drown in the din.

Gaunt and ice-pale,
Ivory fingers delicately linger on
His oak casket.
Red-clad, marooned in a
Sea of black ties and dresses.
He had liked red.

Civilized hands, gentle on
Her back, elbows.
She startles at each touch,
Eyes wild and afraid.

Frozen soil, in shovelfuls
Falling against wood
Which answers with
Dull, muffled cries.
New sod, eerily green
Against woolen snow.

They never heard her cry--
Her black hair her shroud--
Only her breath,
Cold and hungry.

I think:
the hammer blows of love
will always be glancing.
Chipping my soul sideways.

But I know:
that if I'm ever struck full-force,
I shall surely shatter.

The mornings are mine.
A groggy roll-over, crack each big toe.
Lumber to the kitchen, linoleum and particle board cabinets.

The brown buzz rising from my coffee,
A six-letter word for president, or a vacuum.
The sun claws its way over the hills,
Brightening the ragged winter air.
I shiver and rotate into the grey light.

You can have my afternoons, my evenings, nights
(Especially my nights)
When the asthmatic grip of daylight finally falters,
And pillow-fed sadness begins to emerge.

I want your arm on my chest to be real,
I want to hear your humid breathing.
Smell your sleepy, dark, aroma settling into the sheets,
And finally dip into the slumber of a happy man.