Last Night

Tonight at the bar I met someone who looked a lot like me That familiar wry grin, a loose gate cloaking intent He threw a hammer punch, I never saw it coming When I came to, the ground felt tacky in a familiar beer soaked way There was a lot of throbbing going on Somewhere in the recesses of the dark abyss that occupied my skull Appropriately, I reached back toward blackness again The second time, there was an arm connected to a face It was asking me if I knew I was on the ground That seemed obvious but I recognized the game Soon there’d be fingers to count or follow, years to remember The weight of elephants trampled my tongue Tonight I met someone who looked like me The knockout artist, Harry Crews would have walked away Down here, every pant leg and shoe seemed darkly aged They smelled of mild concern, perhaps blended with annoyance This amateur, slumped between the stools But I got the finger count right and a strong arm hooked my belt The door floated into proximity and soon there was a wall I loved that wall and they leaned me against it so I could Scrape down the stucco coolness to it’s base of gum and cigarettes The void behind my eyes expanded again The man I met who looked so familiar receded with disgust A pinhole of streetlamp glow pushed itself up on bruised elbows It seemed logical to take the bottle of water coming into focus After all I had crossed a vast desert, wasn’t the oasis the reward? As I drank it occurred to me that the man I met lived in a suitcase Collecting dust in my ribcage He’d come up before, to say hello and mete out punishment I tied his feet to my shoelaces, so he could walk in front of me And I could keep a better eye on him next time I came to this bar Exhausted from the effort, I allowed them to hoist me to the bed of a truck When the viscous blackness dissolved for the third time, I was at my home The ceiling seemed like a good place to start looking for myself again So I laid there trying to remember to look for my breath first And when it flitted across the horizon I listened to it slowly Thinking of nothing else then thinking I should piss But maybe first take off my shoes The effort was eons in the making. It inadvertently set free That man so familiar, but this time he let me get to my feet So I could embrace him

Comments

[stosh]

...so nice to live to tell the tale so nicely, yes?
...glad to be the finger count provider & strong arm around you
...glad to call you brother