Such were evenings of the type too often marked as sultry,
But sometimes such descriptions are apt
And thus denoted as so;
We would be well into the bottles and cans
To such point as we were not wearing them particularly well,
And so we spoke of things
Which may or may not have mattered,
The relative merits of cinema femme fatales
Dead four, perhaps five decades,
The notion of such women who had it,
(Followed by the de rigeur toasts to Chrissy Hynde,
And long may she wail)
Various things which disappeared with the fog and dew
Once sunrise made its unhappy presence known,
And when the old boiler suggested that sleep and abstinence
Constituted the prudent route to follow,
I excused myself for a walk,
(Nodding to my brother-in-law as he nodded,
Possibly but not invariably still awake)
Undertaken in various shambling states of unsteadiness
Back to my mother-in-law's house
Muttering silent regrets for the lack of bread crumbs
Mixed with somewhat less than sotto voce snippets
Of songs sung earlier with considerable gusto
And nearly adequate fidelity to sharps and flats,
And if I had maintained a relative judiciousness in my intake
(The alternative an unpleasant return to my domicile pro tem,
Usually marked with an entrance featuring mud and mayhem,
More or less forgiven the next morning)
I would, if the evening was clear and still,
Speculate upon the nature of the starlight,
Be it the distress calls of celestial bodies dark and listless
Or something in its salad days, so to speak,
And often it would strike me as somewhat less than fitting
That not a single glass had been raised to their health.

(for Thom Hickey)

It is, one supposes, a business establishment, if just barely
Though more than one would-be shopper,
Having been squeezed against some ancient china cabinet
Or banging an unsuspecting knee
Against some camouflaged table leg,
Has opined that it as if four walls and a low-slung ceiling
Had suddenly thrown themselves about a yard sale,
In any case the place being filled with such things
Which are, if by no means useless bric-a-brac,
Rendered unremarkable, even somewhat undesirable
By their very familiarity,
And in the midst of this rabbit warren of commerce
(Holding an ancient clarinet in his left hand,
Wand-like, a bemused Prospero considering its pros and cons)
Is the proprietor of the shop,
And he notes that you have stopped
In front of some sixties flying-saucer-***-willow-tree lamp,
And he says Ah, well let me tell you something about that,
Holding forth on its manufacturer,
The curious backstory of its design,
And how he came in possession of several other pieces
At the same time, and of course they have their own tales as well,
And you can't help how this confusion of things of former lives
Has suddenly taken on a certain light, a glow even,
The illumination of shared memory,
The recollection of why such things hold a place
In our pasts and presents, and after you exit
You give in to the musing that there were some items
You did not give due consideration,
Which may necessitate a return trip.