When I was 17,
the wreckage
of my home
smoldering
a hundred miles east
of my degenerate
disposition,
I worked
the carnival,
bathed in iridescent light,
kicking the crap
out of time with
my alligator boots,
spinning carousel stories,
exhaling cigarette smoke
in circles above the perfumed
heads of carnal housewives,
the calliope music
swirling endlessly,
a loop of depot kisses
and whiskey lust,
my leather gloves
softened by torn
ticket stubs and
legerdemain.

Beneath big top canvas,
the lonesome doves
of my past tangled
with boxcar bandits
and funhouse shades.

I set the clowns aflame.

On taught ropes
of reckoning,
I tilt-a-whirled
toward evening’s
inexorable blade.