from Blackwater Quartet, selection 7

Diary of a Has-Been

Others waved goodbye.
 
Slow-motion, shoeshine station
a freezeframe of the ’40s,
I doze in the sidings— dog-latin phantom
riding high to Dixie.

Blue-alcohol lightning evaporates,
near the Gulf Coast highway
knuckles of rolling freight stretched, shunting
miles of track down to Mobile.
 
The neon at The Blue Moon
sputters a scissor-cut geometry
through the ceiling fan’s slow circuit,
teasing layered haze from tables
where the cards are cut.
 
Rough ghosts roll out at closing,
the bootleg precinct of the turning mind, the last breath
the knife blade catches,
a notion of time, of worlds fallen
between minutes, reborn as other worlds,
but not in this place where times are torn.
 
I stand beneath the awning
in the horizontal rains, crazed stucco mottled white
and yellow shutters banging.
 
Winds define the bottleneck peninsula,
the string of traffic lights a testament
to nervous gods we praised.
 
Providence settles in soft light through
broken panes, past ragged palms
and gathered grains of discontent, of losses
not lifted when the highway called.
 
The storms fade into the lower Keys, guttering in Cuba.
 
A lizard basks in the alphabet sun,
jewelled shadow stalled.