|
from "blood, love, and boomerangs"
subway tango feeds the stopgap hesitation of late-day commuters
cheap organ vibratos through the underground air mounted
by pseudo-Latino violin simple-duple-dotted rhythms
lifting in melodramatic minor ascension
she wants to dance
the woman in the long black faux-fur coat
with leopard cuffs and collar sways in the subway night
vision of a thorny red rose clenched between her lipstick-stained teeth
the thin-skinned girl in tight black leggings and leather stands stiffly
intent on highlighting passages of scripture entombed
in words of sticky salvation circumscribing
her passion in yellow neon boundaries
the one-armed man tries for invisibility
hiding pain in his thin blue windbreaker
his ghost arm snapping time against gravity
its empty sleeve moving subtly in the subway breeze
and me? -- I want to tango into the air into the spotlight
of the halogen headlight fall briefly
into that tangled tango
 of subway tracks
braking steel
silence
| 