Trapped in a conversation

Streaks of the mop water
on epoxy
sparkling
from a dingy yellow mop bucket
cleaned up a month before
makes the minute hand run slow
water dripping from the Polyvinyl chloride
everything i make i put in the oven
at threehundred and sixty five degrees
catches on fire
Fahrenheit feeds the devil

stabbing holes in the firewall
installing
whiskey wipers in all of the
small pink cars
big yellow trucks
the surgery patients with their rotator cuffs
drilling into
breaking bone
hip replacement's
where spruce trees sproutling's pop up

lowly lit underpasses
broken brown and
clear beer bottles
greasy car throttles
a weathered pizza box
anything you can throw at the threat in their eyes

a nineteen sixties red ford van
with an air conditioning unit
in the back door window
he slept in parking lots
they tried to give him
thick religious books
but said he was a "man of science"
i never knew his name
he died a few months back
they wrote to him
through white chalk
on the faded red paint
and the broken
uneven concrete surrounding
after the bar closed
his friend stood there
in bluejeans
a half untucked shirt
long hair a mess
drunk
waiting for a sign
i hope he got a signal
speaking back from the black that night