On Getting Dumped by Mania in a Strange City
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.
