The death of small towns

Strange habits of brew overkill
studs the patter like
buttons on the coat sleeve
that cut the nostrils
in a full winter climes’
descending scale
of hot items.

All the things about
how needed surgery
destroyed her capacity
to get the words in the right order
without sounding as if she’d
been riding to another water shed
with another boy
named Jason or John or Jake
as it maybe who had
a hobby of spearing rats
with his buck knife and
skinning them for wallets
he’d sew together and sell
at the drug store on Sundays,
after Church.

Seeking some kind of refuge
with the regulars who been
irregular for many twisted years,
seeking an easy place to sit
and read the paper,

there I was,

Drinking ‘though not
thirsty at all
as the sun set and the
light in the bay window
dimmed until the room
was gold toned, then sepia?
and then a fine dark ash
that was perfect for
falling asleep in or
breathing your last
as a final memory crowds
out every deadline I might fail to meet,
or merely continue for hours
drinking in the dark
in the same old chair
listening to faint music
and the late hiss of tires
on the street roll by
until it seems that
there are no doors
or windows in the room
and things are exactly as they always will be,
alone and lost in themselves
in various suggestions of dark vapor.