rattle

 
deeper than the underground.  darker than noir.
that’s where we bury love when it’s danced the last dance.

the stranger in the story is nameless. just another no one stranded
in the wind. rider on the storm. I could’ve sketched her sleepy
silhouette in the moonlight.

she was the finality of the argent night;
the finish.

there was no place to go except a vintage motel, silent as a ghost ship.
we were the only stowaways. we checked in without baggage. hearts
broken long ago over the brittle years & hard roads, & the pieces
scattered in a desert storm.

I wanted to make her a poem, but I couldn’t kidnap her in a journal,
in plaintive script & shot glasses of melancholy. she had somewhere to
rendezvous; a sordid affair with a lover named loneliness.

a story is just a story, I figure.
a passion of tears that goes untitled.

so I hang on to the linger of a sad, solitary kiss  –  
till the rain beats down, & washes it away…


(Artist unknown)