night dc

night twists around my body

hunched up on the cold stone steps

loving

the dark empty streets

they're sad and gentle

and offer up their change for one more

fucking pack of cigarettes

so i pick up their dirty nickels

with frozen hands.

streetlights lick my naked neck

and play on closed eyelids, filtered

through grime and grit

city air smelling like

sex in my brain.

somewhere fourteen streets away a church bell rings

and a woman screams, i think, it could be

a bird, or screeching brakes

i’m too far away to discern,

or to care, i’m too silent

to be anyone’s savior.

i count the lines scratched into this

fragile notebook, this feeble epitaph

to the night melting into grey;

she leaves me for another girl, another

side of the world, kissing me

goodbye with a tongue like ice

melting in my mouth and dripping off my fingertips;

dirty icicles by the sidewalks

show me the way home.