On Getting Dumped by Mania in a Strange City

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Each time skylines shivered

through the window, I’ll admit

I was a little rain-rust

and fire escape leap.

Yes, the stutter of hallway halogens

floor-bound me,

but now, after all the ashtrays

and years I filled with you,

are there no rooms in my body

you’d rent with me?

Could a cosmic phonics ask

for danker train tunnels

than my un-skirted subconscious

to be graffitied into?

Can you find a better 24-hour

pharmacy than my skull?

When nights liquored up

on promises of your return,

summer was a floundered power

grid deranging my senses—

was butane, then spark.

Wick, then wax. Wan glow

by which I watched moonlight

disrobe you over rows

of brown brick town homes

and steel shuttered storefronts.

Any streetlight I let touch me

needed first to wear your face.

Red marquises directed me

to insomnia’s seediest bars

and tattoo parlors. I thumbed

through any book of visions

they handed me seeking

your replacement on my skin.

I meant to erase your fingerprints.

Instead I pointed to your name.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014