He shakes his head
at a shelf
stuffed full
of faded plastic bouquets
shuffles down
past smeared
once-beaming poster boxes
pushing runny lotion
and greasy banquets
his pack
covered with patches bleached
cut
from blackened tarp fabric
bobs
against bustling morning traffic
hands caressing
the steaming plastic tops
of mugs of coffee
and sleek metallic cups
mated with ears
fixated only on the voice
from within
chattering.
-
He had been
a bombardier
during the war.
Manicured hands
drew numbers from a bowl
pasted
across the wavering lines
of the television
sending him
stumbling away
from the cinder-blocked hedges
of home
thrust into
a dizzying, frenzied world
where engines scream
streaking high above
stagnant canopies
before their gleaming bellies
are ripped apart, by blooming spores
celebrating death
to which his response
was flipping a switch
sending barrels plummeting
through radio cackles
relaying figments
final howls
of strained prayer
from
the men on the ground
clutching sobbing families
sheltered
under flimsy thatched ceilings
waiting
for incineration
from the heavens.
-
He had tried
desperately
over the course
of so many
bloodshot nights
to wash
the spores
their cries
sticking to his pores
in a gasoline, incense
streaked crust
all away.
First it was the soothing burn
of the corner store’s cheap gin
stinking of
lukewarm juniper and malt
then
crushed salts
trickling down from a paper packet
onto a tarnished spoon
held over a sputtering flame
before being tapped
at the press of a plunger
pricking his facade
with a silver stalk
feeling the crust
slipping away
into a muddied
euphoric
haze
coursing deep
through beaded convulsions
across
fraying veins.
-
When he stops
before the mead
of peeling, pockmarked benches
the pack thumping down
to rest
out escapes
a
labored
racking
breath
as
withered
waxing
eyes
cast themselves up
to the departure board
watching
through the peephole
a sticky, shimmering bokeh
the destination tickers
take flight.
—7/4/1989
Scrawled on the margins of a discarded Amtrak timetable fished out from between the ties
Sacramento, California