Losin all the lows,
they came up,
went up,
and kicked the little,
torpid brownbag of Habit under the skin—
and then, God-willing,
the next crawl was a soft thirty
away.
She scratched her pallid arm and brushed the licorice
from her temples,
asked him, “Why do you write those
happy—those pleasant, modest
poems,
when that feeling—that great-great-great
how-you-say… thing—
certainly needs no
clarification? ”
Shrugging and eventually crossing himself at
the doorway, he put on the radio and
left for a new bite of Warm,
Warm,
of what he called
That Sweet Home
Lady Love.
Over the Poison and the Boston
and the Bad Company,
she heard the winos in the goldenrod stairway
harmlessly trying to sell him shredded
bouquets of dead dandelions and wash his glasses
with solutions of vinegar
and piss. She
heard him barter a few dollars
and a few poems
and the glasses
and some whiskey
for some peace.
The downstairs door closed, locked,
and she waited for a return,
raking a broken syringe
through her hair;
counting the strokes,
counting the strokes.