a particular nowhere

 
if I haven’t had pieces of lonely nights with whores,
what have I had  –  only the loneliness.
 
two drink minimum in a saloon at the end of someone else’s
song. the street is an alley where drunks sleep in the gutter like
Tom Waits catching a downtown train, the rain is the last music  
of gut-shot mandolins. I’m cold, my collar is hunched, & wet hair
hangs in my face. if you look at me, you won’t see me.
 
it’s a bad night to be alone, that makes it a good night for
Anna Calvi wailing out jezebel. downtempo is a smooth chaser  
for my downlow desires. a 2-dollar trick for a 20-dollar whore.
 
she was tall. a woman with a past, I figured, it was in the shadow  
that dragged along behind her. a shadow more blue than black.
 
desperation is the color of my eyes, she said with a coy smile, like
a beautiful girl doesn’t have to be dumb. ‘you’re not my type,
remotely,’ she averred, ‘but I’ll lay down with you for cash.’
 
the rain wouldn’t let up, but we found a hotel with a hot shower.
we simply did what a man & woman do in a bed that’s not meant
for sleeping, a thing that will be forgotten. there was no poetry in it.
 
when it was done, she put her clothes & lipstick on in the bath.
then she made for the door, & I never told her to stay.
 
sex with a whore is, by rote, brief & without passion.
but I steal from it, romance…
 
 
(Art: Willy Ronis)