Street lights winking like a well-trained enemy. Wired to the gills and humming your elegy. Ancient kisses, so fine and fleeting. It’s a long procession of hearts retreating. So get down. Just stay down, old man. You feel the ocean of time between 17 and here, and all your roundhouse swings ain’t connected in years. Well, slalom my hearse up Faithless and First. Fake the new pages if you can’t rehearse. Disappearing sparks can come back again. You can carry dead moments like a fake gold standard, show off your shrapnel and punch through the plaster. These bars breed ballads. You can go forever, but the bile and the tears are gonna break like weather. So get up. Come on. Stay up, old man. When all your vows ring hollow and you’re hwling for home, you wanna dive for the bedrock and bury your bones. Well, rattle my chains up Faithless and Main. Fake a salvation in the spitting-down rain.

Well my line comes down from a Northwest town suffocating in the lowland firs. Ma worked the burn unit up at St. Raphael's and came home to call the old man "sir." Well I swore on those holy pines I'd never end up like her. So I scraped up the cash and I jetted out fast, hit the restaurant raids in the South. I took sad counter boys to my bed every night, taught 'em what mercy was all about. And I'd cross myself with relief every time they walked out. Yeah, but Cal was an angel with jet-black bangs, just moaning on a one-foot stage. I dragged him to the fields where the vans stall out and got him ribcage to ribcage. And in the heat of the hardest promises, we set those fields ablaze. And the stars fell dim, and his scorch was soothing, and with a sigh and a shudder I let him in. Well the weeks rained down and I got lost in the sound of my black-haired angel's song. We'd dance in his kitchen, nod off on my porch, light the candles and kiss till dawn. But I could never stomach something that sweet for too long. Now it's girls' night out and the dance floor's soaked with shadows at the Lazy Star. Some Romeo clocks me. He's as pretty as sin leaning over me at the bar. Sometimes all it takes is a story, a smile and a decent scar. And he strokes my wrist as I bite my lip, and the room and the lights and the bottles all start to drift. Grab my phone buzzing off my hip. Cal's asking me if I'm okay. Romeo's warm and closing in, and I can hear my Mama say: "You better bring him some water, girl, or let him burn away."

Fifteen didn't even count, baby-blind with marbles in my mouth. Cuyahoga girls with knockin' knees. Grinding my gears up against the trees. Fifteen was a chorus on the breeze. Twenty came and set me free, miles between the ties that bind and me. I'd play the jester all through college town, and razor-wire girls would cut me down. A good day at twenty was just above the ground. At twenty-five, I was sorted out, drunk on the restaurant raids of the new south. Counter girls would wink at what I said and teach me how to touch them in their beds. At twenty-five, I was way ahead. Thirty was a nervous laugh. Counter girls wised up and whistled past. I lost track of the door men and the bands and lost some lovers with my sleight-of-hand. At thirty I just scattered them like sand. Hit thirty-five and up came the fear. I went to seven weddings in a year. I saw seven sailors come back home to shore. They took their mothers waltzin' across the floor. Thirty-five brought darkness to my door. One bar-back knows my name and the rest are polite as I settle up and stumble home tonight to taped-up pictures of all my cousins' kids. To a rented, littered room far off the grid, where I'll sleep with everything I did.

Me and Cal rented a van at 27, left behind gratuities and petty crimes. Our band drew insults from Youngstown to Charlotte. It still beat bleach water and punching time. Cause, oh, some nights we struck like lightning, with the crowd all cherry bombs and misted eyes. And, oh, the sleeping bags and stolen kisses, and the wonder of those unfamiliar skies. Last night I caught the Pageant on Dickinson Avenue, and the undergrads and lifers all swayed in time. We all smiled as the plaster fell around us, and then the conquerors jumped in a rented Econoline. Now Cal’s gone north on a bloodshot mission. Sometimes we talk long distance on his label’s dime. Sometimes I sing in the car, where no one’s listening. It’s a long commute, but I swear I could drive it blind. It’s been too many summers since I’ve seen 27, and I don’t think I can ever leave home again. You can’t leave home. You can’t leave home again.

That April night by the river out behind your mother’s house, we were dripping dry and the wind was full alive with coffee blossoms. We danced beneath the leaves, all alone with tired feet. Weary eyes, aching bones, but home. The memory of your skin, I block it out. It comes back in. Laughter sang. Luna shone. We were home. I shuffled up to you ‘cross cracked kitchen tiles. You sat on the counter, just transmitting smiles over to me. We walked to the front stoop, blushed and sublime. In the cinch of a whisper, I missed the speck of time where the kiss should be. I just couldn’t see. And I saw your gringo down, snapping his fingers ‘round, white as pictures of Jesus. And his charming New York stammers, and your smile an inch from his, and the thunderhead’s a song. Your fire escape’s empty. I look up from the stones. Your lights are on, shadows long. Are you home? It’s a dirty little island. Liquor signs and neon drones find us here, Corazon, far from home. The sirens are wailing. The alley’s cut with light. There’s broken boys and switchblades giving up the fight. It’s a desolate night. Maria, they’ll find me wherever I hide. They’ll bruise me at the station, but I’ll just shut my eyes. We’re by the river. We’re dripping dry that April night. The most beautiful sound I ever heard: home.

Oh, mother, the screen and the pixels, I fear that they have eaten into the whites of my eyes. Oh, mother, the carpals and the tunnels, the crack and the clack of the subway, I fear that they poisoned my insides. It was such a luxurious skyline I saw the first time, when I met a Cobble Hill gypsy, all scarves and the scent of Europa. But she’d come from Urbana, burning like the dive bar candle between us. And I fell fathoms deep into the waters of her blue, blotted eyes. We’d get high in the rooms with the vodka ‘til the player piano would waltz us out ‘cross Central Park. And in the traffic and the towers of granite, we’d spitball our dreams and desires, and laugh as we counted the bridge lights, never noticing the tide coming in greasy and dark. Oh, mother, my heart’s swollen with toxins, infected with love and its lacking. If that futon is still in the basement, all I need is a key to the side door. I promise I won’t make a sound as I dream of that diseased city, its canyons all splitting and screaming and swallowing me down.

He got off work early, pit stopped for a rose. She was sweeping linoleum in apartment clothes. She smiled at the petals, wiped the sweat off her brow. “Let’s get the hell out of here now.” He faked a Chinese accent just to hear her muffle a laugh. The chopsticks fumbled, the sweet green tea. The Friday night cars rushing past, full of letter jacket kids late for the half time show. “That was us just a few years ago. Honey, that was us just a short while ago.” She lay beneath the covers like a late Christmas gift. “We should get a house on the west side. I should take an extra shift.” The moon a milky halo, how gentle it shone. She said, “I’m not sure, but I think we’re home. I’m not sure, but I think we’re home. I’m not sure.”

Hands bone cold, the graying wolf bargains with the stars. The cursed woods, the tapering world. Until the city surrenders a sign, like the blush and the rush of the wine. Return to the chase of the light. Catch a speck of forever tonight. She dances sweats of lunacy, singed with carpet burns. The wilting eyes, so-called porcelain prize. And she surrenders to the city's signs with a blush and a rush of the wine, sky scattered with long-dead light, as the grey wolves all circle in tight. Yeah, we're faking the wisdom tonight.

Crooked smile and tasted teeth, and you’re singed eyes, singing Slanted & Enchanted to each other in the dark. And streetlamp light was all we were drinking. So as the tendons flex behind the brooms of every town’s restaurant floors, your shirt barely fits. And your ghost says forget me but I keep on remembering more. The mud on my jeans still won’t come clean and the sink is full of floaters and empties. A couch-length away and closing in, sometimes I wish you’d never even met me. Up against the cushions and breathing every pore, I’m such a goner sometimes. Ice on the tarpaulin and you took half my coat, our finest hour up before we knew it was fine. I can’t heal blisters, so don’t even ask. Don’t take me to task with a mile marker passed and a burgundy bottle. You say, “Let’s give it a rest.” So now I’m moving backward, using half my breath. Well the mud on my jeans will never come clean and the house is filled with floaters and empties. An armrest away and closing in, sometime I wish you’d never even met me. We’re so done for, darling Nikki.

The night after Christmas, the space heater toasting your flannels and fingerless gloves. With Brooklyn impending, we talked until four. Proximity sobered us up. You said he’s not good at planning your weekends together. He sputters. He sours. He flakes. Between that and rubbing our elbows together, we hazarded countless mistakes. Cancel the snow. Drop out the strings. You and I don’t owe each other a thing. Clinging like children, warm, close and trembling. Our breathing kept time as we swayed. The floorboards an ocean, thick, black and threatening to swallow us under the waves. A moment can chase you down your whole life.