The redneck got arrested last night.

The ******* was barking back at dogs
and belting shots of scotch well-before sundown.
You could say he and the sun were collectively sinking.

Nights like these
breed pregnant silences
between the outbursts.
I sit poised for the next eruption
as a child cloistered under covers for fear of thunderclaps--

Another howl,
(presumably bellowing for beer)
then he's batting his live-in lap-straddler
around the apartment beneath me.

With every strike
the drywall learns a lesson
this ignorant *****
can't get a grip on:

some things never change.
The world will change around them
like tissue growing around a bullet fragment.

The cops come,
the cuffs go on,
and the problem is put on pause for an evening--
but he'll ascend the stairs with the sunrise.

They'll reconcile,
            because misery does want for company.

He'll promise he'll be different.
She'll actually believe him.
They'll be back to battering their plaster
with the reverberations of ******* and arguments.

She can't see that a drunkard's apologies
        are counterfeit currency.

I took it for common knowledge.

Perhaps it is...

Perhaps, like living in tornado alley,
they cope with ceaseless ****-storms
because they're just too lazy to move.