The Pain


scratches like leaves across the soaked confetti
It litters the ground with unsound prayers
It plays dot to dot with rotted out memories
It leaves a flawed spot on a white dress of dreams
'till a thunderstorm swarms a melancholy tornado
and whips at the scald noon sewer like an enema
until the moon blooms, vacuumed in the hot, to
set in the jet sky like a rock in a sauna, to
bath the auld autos, those stalled bumper cars
still anticipating the carnival excitement of
lightning
will lend them some form of condensed, controlled fire

Did I ever tell you how much I admired you
On any senseless night by the R.C. machine
where your hair had the wings of a Caribbean penny
as enticing and wet as the love in your mouth
When you headed South in your tea colored top, that
blouse with the spouse shoes, crushed used bottle tops
into the asphalt, each one, my heart thrown
into the glint of the Best Western Sun
Setting alone.