I met him at a dust-bowl bus station
In Mobile, where buses wore dust trail capes.
Roaches clicked in the water fountain basin.

With charisma he denounced
The muddled spray of birth and spring,
The spermy apocalypse brought forth by an
Army of mad babies with syphilis-splintered brains.

He had gambled for three nights,
Wonder and reason backing his chips —
Small blind, big blind.
He had the shoulders of a man who locks the door
And hides the key — an invisible traveling carnival
Trailed his gait on a pace-worn floor.

Bed bugs had made Braille of his arm.
He was going off to a camp south of Cabbage Town
Where he would sweat beneath the sun,
Surrender beneath the stars,
And dream of the ten women he’d made.

He told me he hated knowing he was in control,
And that it was the saddest part of the darkest hour.