Los Angeles

Los Angeles


Stars glisten over the alley
after we pay the bill,
dim white glow on cracked brick
and every twine of a rainbow.


You say there’s nothing to cry about ever again,you say, I am dry as the gulch
that runs between my heart
and the trembling mouth
I might feed and die
the grievous wounds.

These hands stay
in my pocket,

this wallet is closed,
each old dollar sheds a tear.


I like blues guitar and
walks along the river, I respond,
but only at dusk so the broken windows gleam
like gold teeth under a jeweler’s lens,

static smoke stacks looming
over the oily wakes
freighters leave for
the shoreline rocks
is my idea of perfect harmony
and balance in the cosmos.
Little else feels
as fine as seeing
a planet behind exhausted
one fossil at a time.

In the car
radio voices argue
about stats and gun control,
the skyline recedes,

we’re on the freeway,
concrete corridors
as far as these keys
can take us.