Keyring's clinking on my cut time stride
under lights, buzzing islands in the ink sea night.
Slink away from my murky years,
                  they're piling up
and I'm hunched, walking dumb
          across the hazard yellow lines.

Behind me
          the night just rolls up
almost outruns me to my front doorstep.
                                                The hungry
hills enclose
                    our mid-size
                    opaque town.

Old partners,
          forgotten crimes we
did and left trails of clues, all gutshot
                                       creep hunching
through this skull
                      beneath a
                      fraying cap.

Keyrings jangle like anxieties
in my chest, humming static in the core of me.
Sinking in to familiar tones;
                  shades purple grey.
And it's cold, striding slow
          through the west side warehouse lots.

Behind me
          the teeming sidewalks
shout half-slurred spears at my back retreating.
                                                The half-light
spills itself
                    on wrinkled,
                    trenching brows.

And out there
          the night just rolls up
to darken the mat by your front doorstep.
                                                You're just a
single thought
                    and several
                    miles away.