1 New Poem

Pine Tinder

In the stolen wonderland
of interlocked train cars, crisscross
traffic between stowaway kisses
off concrete paths,

We burn bright,
white phosphorus and corner store whiskey,
in ragged-end dress and worn elbow coat.

We are wonderous against a thousand
microphones held searching
for explanation, for the why/how
of it all.

We brush past,
unbothered in the acid glow,
cast by bent street lamps,
cast by quarter-shade phones boxes
with copper and change
long since stripped.

Until we round corners,
catch faces against motor oil pools
in blear-eyed dawn light;

How weary, how extinguished,
how like the spectacles-and-watch crowd,
we look in afterparty haze.