Here travels the night
breathing a welcome on the ten-o-clock train
its throbbing lit windows, watching
homes with a chair for you,
offered up for you.
There must be a Hank Williams song
playing softly on the piano in that back room,
the tune remembered,
the words mostly gone,
as train tracks drum their clacking teeth,
the murmur of night,
nothing but dark, white noise.
You are drawn to lists:
moths to garish light,
middle-age men to pissant beer
hookers to their electric lipstick
deep in clutch purses,
like cats to cream
and by the time your similes run dry
so do your eyes run wet
with something deep at your burning core:
red hot ash,
embers,
a volcano.
Blaze me on your jacket,
boy, the little finger tickles you send
up my spine and cerebellum,
they kill old antebellum skirts
in their eager largess. Enough
definitives, stress, unstressed
feet making time and sense
of the nonsense I make.
Why do I wear lace
when I long for rip free denim hardware,
rip-free and non tear
caked in clean brown mud?
See the curving belly roll
each jean fold
the pucker of sultry jean that calls
every hour or two
it asks if you made it home safe
if you need a ride
did you have that other shot of whiskey,
or did you need to stay the night.
Talk softly.
I’ll kiss you on the cheek and tuck you in
The sofa beds down for the night
having loved on people like you.
Here travels the night
whispering some vague welcome to me
through the windows of lit village windows.
Of homes with a chair for me
offered up for me.
There must be an old country song
playing softly on the piano in the back of the room,
the tune remembered
the words mostly gone,
train tracks drumming their clacking teeth
and the whirr of the night
nothing but dark white noise.
I am drawn to lists
like moths to garish light,
middle aged men to cans of beer
hookers to their plastic pink lipstick
in the bowels of clutch purses,
like cats to cream
and by the time my similes run dry
so do my eyes run wet
with something deep at the burning core:
red hot ash,
embers,
a volcano.
