“Last Call,” I hear the bartender gurgle
him with the potbelly, and tousled red hair
slick with pork grease and beer slosh.
I hate him.
He withholds my whisky with dignity and disdain,
remembering when I said I’d never see him again.

So I tell him the toilet is overflowed
and as he waddles off
I grab a bottle of Jim Bean, wishing it were Scotch,
and sneakily amble out the door
hitting my head on the frame.

Quicksilver
is spouting from the rooftops,
sloshing, washing
or burning
clean the gutters with its molten-ness

Drops sizzle into my skin
and I am
a few hundred dollars more valuable.

Some neon pamphlet slaps my face
and tells me of sales on lingerie
while the sky cracks open;
burning vermillion.

An aging drag queen shouts,
“The poles are shiftin’, honey!”
but they seem fine to me as I slump
on a lamppost and knockback more bourbon.

The sky’s red mouth smile has split
into a yawn
and somethings like oily pigeons flutter out.
Instead of hovering, they thrash the air with angry swishes
and dive to earth, spearing my bartender
before throwing him
off of the Chrysler Building.
When’s last call now *******?

And around the corner of Houston and Broadway
I see a skeletal horse:
all bone and gristle
and glowing chartreuse.

Feeling clever, I walked over
and told him he was looking thin

He raised a bone-eyebrow and smirked a bit,
told me I was looking sickly.
Being cleverer and far more ironic
he shook his flames
nodded to his friends
and cantered off;
flanked by blurs of black and red and white.

War
Conquest
and Death
ride on ahead
But greeny looks over his shoulder-haunch
as if to say,
“You sure about this?”

With something like a pout,
I drop my unfinished drink in the trash
Fine, fine.
I lob my flask in too.

The night is just night again
and skin is less valuable
but my horse remains,
glowing with awkward judgment.
“Jesus Christ, really?” I say,
and move my bottle to the recycling.