I eyed a sore back
tattoo until six stops past
Capitol Hill and had
soft thoughts until I
remembered I was a tourist not
a ghost
I came for a woman; the
Northwest called like spread
hips and I answered dumbly
On Broadway the new
skyline sunk in and it hit
that I was an eager fool
It rained the ocean's
remainder and I walked ten
minutes down the wrong
street reviewing a
guiltily bulleted list
of misfiring pistons:
My rooster-cage torso;
my broth-thin resources;
my skill-set's arpeggiation.
Tenuous, tenuous,
tenuous.
Later
in bars under whiskys I stared
through smoke at the wedding
band of a man as he
spat into a urinal but
instead I saw my friend the eternal
champion hitting smooth rocks
into the Pacific with a driftwood
bat and something
hidden curdled