It's an empty
Saturday night here,
light thrown off
pocked, wet streets
a lonely trembling blue,
the city seized
by shameful cold,
the visions of
my sorrowful heart
just languid dreams
falling farther behind.
I drive alone again
under the dwindling pour
of a thousand
hymnal arc lamps
while the radio
feeds me Coltrane,
fighting off a jagged
glow of electric sleep
while a perilous
night sky
releases snow
like a soft design.
Along the outskirts
of the city,
in the reflection
of my dim
upraised headlights,
I think I see,
in the ruptured
distance ahead,
factory ruins
that once spat
unending white hot
flames into the
night-in-day skies
like a chemical chimera,
their hulking remains
a metallic fossil
slowly falling apart
one deteriorating
bone at a time.
Growing weary
with every tire roll
I pull into
the decrepit
parking lot
of a diner
I've visited
many times
that prays time
has forgotten it.
It's the same
scene here
every time,
I think,  
as I pull open
the glass door
stained with faint
greasy hand prints,
glass ashtrays
on the counter
overflowing with
lipstick-kissed
cigarettes and
brown mugs
half-empty
with chilling coffee
as old women
with over-painted faces
push bland food
around on chipped
porcelain plates
and tired men
in red flannel
with dark-circled eyes
chew soft food
without teeth,
their humble lives
now forfeit
beneath the
cobwebbed fan's
irregular hum.
Only you,
by yourself
in the front
corner booth
sit uninvolved
with the tacit grief
of this melancholy place,
your flawless face
downcast into an
old library book,
your beauty
engaging those
around you
whose dreams
are filled
with loss.
Taking a routine
cheap order
from another
vague, rough face,
the coltish waitress,
gladly hiding behind
thick, dark glasses,
delivers up
the thrum of her
delicate heart
behind pearl
black eyes
as she delicately fills
my deep, empty cup
with steaming coffee
that tastes of
white noise.
Does all memory
finally bleed
through the boredom?
One final time
this unexpected night
my bloodshot eyes
circle the gray interior
of the diner,
finally settling
on you again
through the haze
of my own
broken down life
and I decide
to finally confess:
I will always love
whoever you are
for the gentle swell
you reached within
my burdensome heart
this typical night,
the world filled
with promises
but also all of us.