Tonight, holding a stranger in my arms—
Suddenly a downpour, a late
Summer storm. I thought of you, alone or
Not alone in that distant city,
And at that house when the punk musicians’ bar,
And the carpeted bars,
With their well-coiffed, careful clientele,
Are closing—
Those strangers pairing off at last & each desiring
What little mercy the other can
Afford. That
wasted breath of neon light a frail
Tattoo or come-on in pools
Of rain. That street, That rain.
No. Our street. Our rain. Holding her, not you,
I watched finally
Empty, watched until the streaked,
Reddening light of dawn came back & touched
The quiet brick of empty dance halls, touched,
Behind the blackened tavern windows, a girl’s cast-off
Blouse; touched even the pocked faces of musicians on
The posters there: Gun Club; Millions
Of Dead Cops—almost as if dawn light could
Hold all things—each piece
Of shattered glass, as if to somehow bless them,
Or make them whole again.
It can’t, or won’t.
And it is late for blessings: All night
I’ve held a woman who,
Tomorrow, I will not want to see again, & who,
Tomorrow, probably will feel the same
For me. And so at last the two of us
Will have something in common:
A slight embarrassment, or,
Someday in winter, passing on a street,
A quick, amused glance before
We turn away.
I don’t expect much anymore; or else
That city is so far away by now it seems
Made of great light, & distance,
Even though it was, mostly, only a house
Like any other, lit at dinnertime
By human speech, the oldest of stories; something
In common. I remember now,
After scolding him,
The precise & careful way
My two-year-old son once offered me
The crust of his own bread, holding it out
So solemnly, as if it mattered, holding it
With great care.