blue checkered jacket
the cloth faded.
kneeling onto yesterday
holding on to tomorrow
her leathery tan hands cup
a wrinkled  tired face.
the white tasseled hair and the bulbous nose.
hope has left her eyes,
the light has turn to rain.
beneath a torn brown skirt
short varicose  bowed legs
forever journey to no place.
everything she owns in a big paper bag.

She has no home.

he sits on the bar stool beside her
                            too skinny
                            his flat wrinkled forehead
                            lifts brown bushy eyebrows
                            but he does not speak to her

                            she is blonde of course
                            perhaps 23
                            also skinny
                            a flat chested go go dancer
                            from new york city
                            el passo
                            bakersfield
                   ­         miamichicagomontreal
                            denver…­

                            she is with someone else

                             he thought she was his
                             but now

                             as a friend
                             she would like to buy him a shot

                             tired eyes narrow                            
                             he  stares at her as if he
                             has never lost a job
                                                                      ­                                     
                             as if no woman
                             brunette red head or blonde that he has loved
                             whose name he has tattooed onto his arm
                             has ever left him
                             as if the mail man, the priest, and his mom
                             are spitting into his stupid face
                             as if god has kicked him in the nuts
                             as if his dog has bit his hand as if
                    
                             this could never have happened to him

He holds her like
a hand of cards
Throws her down
like the jack of diamonds
That wipes the smile
from her heart.
he pushes the pillow from the bed
rising
Slowly
he struts away
puts on rumpled clothes
over yellow underwear,
throws on his cowboy hat,
grabs a beer...
heads out the door

through the window
a breeze  blows
the door shut.

meow,
the cat says.

in the east the moon is full.
one of those huge harvest moons
and I think I can almost see some craters
and I imagine like a
little boy
that hiding in the shadows of the moon
I can see a cream colored horse.

when I look down
there she stands chewing
bubble gum
about 16
with pensive brown eyes
and as they lift
she smiles.

no, i tell her, no thanks.

i follow the snow down main street
stop and turn.
a car has pulled up to her
the door swings open and
as she slides into the yellow cadillac
her skirt tugs tightly around her firm ***
and all the space between earth
and moon
is hers.
                                  
the door slams shut.
the cadillac heads east
                                  
she rides the horse of cream
 into shadows

and only the bubble gum is real.

the trees whispering
in the wind

hooves thundering across the meadow.

on my arm
your touch is a warm breeze

in your eyes
I see the horses running

I felt like an old newspaper
blowing across a deserted street
predicted my life.
I had on the same faded blue jeans
and 10 dollars in my pocket
and faded eyes
and holes in my sneakers.
and sometimes
I still cast a shadow
standing in sunlight

the snow...
all the street intoxicated by it.

a passing car's head light
disturbs the intelligence of her eyes.
"in sleepless dreams, I know you,"
she tells me.

and like the snow blowing across the deserted street,
a smile spreads across her face
and as her green eyes slowly lift

I look into them
and see van gogh
sitting in a lonely field
of twisted cypress trees
forever blue, mysterious
and possessed.

then, as a street light comes on,
her slim white hand
(whitened by eternal snows) reaches

and into that deeper dark we walk

in the distance the lonely tooting of a taxi horn.