you can’t spark the acetylene every sundown
you can’t keep it revved past the redline long
people start to pile up like hubcaps in a salvage yard
and you don’t know if she’s the woman you love
or the one who turned you positive
and i never rode a bus that wasn’t lonely
strangers without cash enough for a car or plane
we know there’s something wrong with all of us
neon flashes by like paparazzi for the truly lost
waiting for the next stop at the same place
man, this house smells like gettysburg
old wood, stucco, alcohol, cigarettes & noise
how many me’s took a bullet here
who’s little boy is that watching his little league
bat smash his mother’s favorite lamp
but the air’s blowing cool as jazz out here on the curb
halfway through a quart of miller
flick my cigarette at a porsche flying by
lonely as a dry well, amused again
at a god leaves just one moon in all this night
Chrome Press 