A friend loses sleep at night
worrying—big hearted tender—oppressive
summer nights when one can hear
music playing from the cantina next
to the river downtown—wisdom blues,
he tells me—true wisdom weighing the heart
which is more than muscle, pumps more
than blood.
Cicadas sing the dark—Imagines
a man and a woman meeting on a street corner,
getting into a cab—a thin sweat of June
on her skin—a street lamp—she and the man
settle in for the ride. There is no context—
Imagines sitting on a front porch counting
fireflies—listens to the old people talk
about a great uncle long dead who came home
changed—wouldn’t hunt anymore. Drank
himself to death, they said. His wife left him
for a salesman in Nashville.
Dreams he is in a room with strangers—
trying to explain entropy. A man in a white
jacket offers him a drink. People clump
in small groups talking in b flat.
from From an Upstairs Window