There were fires screaming nightly from that chaos, there were vultures in that lightless desert deep. Twin flights of vagrant carrion, pecking lithe the bones of recent fallen, plucking skyward out the eyelids of the dead, rush west off and to the sea in ragged torment: boneplucked drying dead lay maggotchewed and fawning for a day once more in worlds among the living: these were shepherds and flock-herders, men of simple ways. Nobel, tilling hard the earth each season for the reaping up of all the lying dust: those naked seeds in frenzy sup the living waters deep and through their clustered gullets sheltered there along the fecund ground. The sun in rage climbs swiftly from his ladder tall and shrinks beneath the towering of mountains: all lays still and none are speaking. There is death here, for the finding and the taking. There is no life here for miles. There is only the lament of something old and just past sight:  the breathing of a windy gale. Let come the vultures for the bones. We are not sorry for the hurting ground.

Was it true then that there were men made all of iron and stone.

Men who could stand against the daily wind
and look to the north, to just past gaze and further,
that foggy line of splotch horizonbound
where it seems all dreams just make to lying.
Spreadeagled and barren they make to lying
as their sunweathered drapes just sprawl out
like flying tendrils in the breeze, naked it seems,
all dreams, all dreams naked
and laying splayed out windcoddled.
And was it true there were men who could stand and see this and not bend.

Was there fire there, somewhere.
Was there fire in she, fire.
And did it fall from now and slip to then like all things
or it was it something more.
And were there ghosts in nightdress dancing daisied like
through candlefire and coming to rest like pillowdown
on that tired head when night is long or was it something more.
Were there thousands of them crawling out through windows
like ashy fog and blinding out the eyes of all the souls who lay there
watching without whisper
or like the slipping from the then to now was it something ever more,
was there a thrushing in that nimble crux like there was in the other.

As lilied draw the gilded from their
corners in the blanket fog
come nether also hellfire sprung
all eyes and eyes neglected
to reap wild naked all the lying seed


Godhead rises to the keel of kneeling limb
arched and tiltlike and as the brows of they
Sisyphus in flesh and blistered marble
wretch'd and lash'd and only for a throe in lusty Peitho


Their bellows echo swelling thrushed and gulletborn
in vain
and tallowed rhapsody
though faint and near unseen
Come
harp and sound
and savage wind
and all that kindling peppered down
All feverborn, they
Calling out and
lilting heaven's voice ere daylight's eve

      The old white car puttered on up from the distance into sight, spouting smog from out the muffler's gutterbreath in blankets. A scattered dozen so of mourners leaned on out from deep within their auto's shells parked all along the side of curb, popping buckles out and letting fly their belts on into catacombs in waiting. Old men, tired women, girls with hair all loosed and let to twirling in that breeze of evening. Young bucks, slackjawed leanwall kids with bearded necks and twitchy fingers, navyslacked and yawning and pressed on out and through the growing crowded throng all eyehushed jaundiced sad and dripping sorrow: greyhaired fathers uncles brothers cousins daughters sisters mothers aunts and wives: and all and all the lot all eyehushed sad and all and even if they showed it not they were. The line of gathered started making East and for the church all masked up light in clatterchat and chucklefuck, some shit facade of being just okay the lot of them, and speaking all of holiday in summer sun and billowing of curtains some old season 'round the heads of some old youngsters, and they caught up got and lost and stuck up in those curtains and the youngsters couldn't ever wriggle out. Just stuck there like the ocean when you're under there without a breath in heaving for the air out open, they were there. But loose they came and spilling down along the heads of youngsters all the curtainstream and wrought rod with it, fast and down like hammerfall the rod along their heads and out they screamed and said the old man never let the curtain fall, he said. Never let it fall but kids got twisted up and lost and stuck and only when the hammer falls does freedom come, he said. You'll let those curtains billow up around you and you'll soon be nothing but 'em till the hammer falls. And said and all as firstrain strikes at twilight 'long the crawl, laying soft like pillowdown along the mayearth nowdry and the heads now soon undry in grief, the relic plastered crawl of mourners gathered for the funeral in clatterchat, whispering in ear and ear a hush of rushing dirty evil secrets. The old white car in putter drew up clear and smooth along the curbside, belching quakelike into rest. The man stepped out with lacquered shoes and hair all pomade slick, golden bucklebelt and tailored jeans, some age-old leather vest and hat in hand he walked off toward the church. The underfoot then just a hush of sog in layered strata through the growing sooted muck, he pattered on and slogged up through on to the edge of rolling underhill. He pressed on and through the muddy stuckup back-ground 'till he reached swift with a step the church's sidedoor, just a heave up trio-ed bricksteps and he stuck the key in swiftlock, turning open wide the door and stepping on inside for shelter from the tempest then in brew. Warm inside and like the heat of lucky summer, thought he then. That shelter only's there when one ain't got his eyes out for it. Only there before the storm and in it's eye. That you'd be up there spinning with the dandered brush like pinwheels in the sky, and fly on up past Babel, up past day and evil night. Where eyes won't look. Where eyes that look won't see. Where devil's eyes can't keep they evil sights set right on me. Let the tempest never come.

            'Damnit.'

            Spotty lights on the rims of tires spin corners outside the window, past the boulevard and dragging on.

            'Goddamnit. Godfuckingdamnit.'

            Twin heads of ravendrapes on tiny female frames come spooling out the wireframe door of a barren soggy house, pressured like a boiler, steam rising ashy from their heads. The girls make their way through the doors and onto the curb, through the clutter of the duskwalkers in the brown and fogless prenight. Sightless crawls a touch of stovegas from without the innards of the gnarled dying house, gathered up in plumes like cotton candy, sightless then.

            'Damn it all to hell. Motherfuckers claim they seen that shit last night. Motherfuckers think they know shit, talking like they seen shit. Like they seen us there. Like they was there, man. Godfucking damnit all to hell and back. My skin's crawlin' with spiders, now, and I can't see a thing. Soul's stirring something mighty and fierce. There's an evil wind, man. An evil wind racing in and my bones are shaking, motherfucker. Spit out a word, goddamnit.'

            'Flouride.'

            They're working their way past the alley and down the block, the girls, asscheeks jeanswathed and bouncing rhythmic like apples in the hands of elder gods. Cockeyed sleaze and meatjawed slime come  looming up like thunderheads and watch sly their asses like ravens with buckled knees for worms. Pitter, patter, sounds the dropping of the first of storm and the eyes of the girls see heaven and the sun at dusk. A corner's turned. The eyes of the loveless draw back shrieking into hollows for the nightstay. The cornerlights jump from red to green. On crawl the scattered autos. Solomon lights a smoke.

            'What is that?'

            'A cigarette.'

            His caramel skin flushes subtle red as he puffs deep on the dried pressed farmgrown.

            'Fuck off, .'

            'Can do that, boy. Can do that rightly and can do that now. Best to coyly watch those words. You're prime for a bitch-lashing from the old fists, Kilroy.'

            'Just tell me they ain't seen shit.'

             'What was it so god almighty wretched that you're here like this, that thick nigger skull of yours masked up with those droopy eyes, those pouty lips. What the fuck was it exactly that you did.'

            'Tell me and I leave and I never say a word to your old nappy ass again. Just tell me that shit and I walk away, walk away and for forever, motherfucker. Whatever the fuck it is you want. Give me some assurance. Tell me they asses are blind. Tell me you didn't get a call. There are spiders on my skin, motherfucker.'

            'Have a seat, boy. There's tea on the stove. Shut the fuck up promptly and with a vengeance.'

            Donny Kilroy has his eyes on the corner just half a block down westward. They had moved from sight to the onrushing, the girls. They had seen the sun and they were now far from the knowing, some corner out yonder they had passed and would pass again, further out and all lost to the knowing. Past the yawning gutter streets and the inner city hollow where the blues lay nightly like a blanket over aching heads, they were far and growing farther. Donny Kilroy sees the sun no longer and the shitbrown fog of dusk lies heavy in the air like smog, the taste of turpentine. A telephone rings loudly several miles down the hallway, past the closet door, in some enormous cavern.

            'I ain't that old, Donny boy. Folks presumedly'd call me middle-aged.'

             Solomon creaks up from his cushioned chair and makes his way hallward toward the phone.

            'Motherfucker,' a whisper. 'Blind savage motherfucker. Old as shit too.'

            Moving from the window, cautious, Donny grabs a cigarette from the old man's pack and, feigning brashness in lieu of posterity, cocks the smoke at angle, tearing the filter from the rest. He stuffs the smoke in lip and lights it with an ancient Zippo, somehow lusty for the reek of canvassed butane. He puffs hard and immediately bellows an enormous cough, hunched over, spitting little sprigs of dried pressed farmgrown from sticky lips.

            'Solomon here.'

            Donny Kilroy pricks up his ears, batlike, he thinks. He pats out the cigarette in an ancient wrought spitoon, listening.

            'Yes, Dr. Reilly Solomon.'

            Tires spin a hollow gleam, just outside the window of the den, as a lux speckled green Camino comes up screeching, lightly, frame set low and angled up, canine somehow, grilleteeth barren and lathed in slobbered foam, raucous, and from the twin twelve inch cannons lying dugout in the rear:

            gone say the bitches with they eyes on they heartstrings

            a fever for a fevered head like dust settle daydreams

            and motherfuckers step up

            keep they crook monkey necks up

            a siren is a dope fiend with a felled angel's getup

            and what is the word

            'Yes. It is you. I thought it might be. You, that is. The boy's here now.'

            A pause. Eternal. A dawnish dusklight comes threshing through the center of the warped and mired glasspane. Donny Kilroy sees this and he does not see the sun. The Camino sprints off posthaste post a hasty stinted stop, the words coy and naked drench the avenue in limelight: all the boys in hooded sweatsleeves haunch themselves to keeling over railposts with their cigarettes and bowls of hash, caughtup dry and eaglespread in one thousand and one tomorrows as the days fall all to yester.

            'Dew on that brow, yes there is. Dew there is and plenty. He'd make a salter for a hamfarm with that soggy monkey skull of his. And what you're telling me is true, I'll take it for granted and for truth.'

            …

            'Alright. Keep those boys in city red from lashing out at the kid. He's just that, after all. A kid.'

            Donny feels he hears the cresting of the carpet's fingers as they're lashed to bending by the footfall of the old man's leather shoes. A lockstep one-and-two like march-band's metered drum, he feels he hears the footfalls and the cresting of the fingers bent, undertoe, metric, patterned, a step each draws the phantom closer to the knowing and further down the miles spacious empty of the cavern and the hall. The ghost he feels is smiling. The wind breathes like a lanternjack, glowing eyes all green, some dutchman flying in on nights of cold and wind, culling in the children and lashing out in footfalls strident.

            and what is the word

            Clickstop sounds the phone's receiver as the man steps out the door, graying spots of curled nappy hair dusted gracefully through black and brown, sweeped back and over, the man a relic of some ancient wizard beatnik hoven, a postboard for the jazz-inclined incumbent, the air around him tempered with the odor stale of guru. Hat in hand, the man walks up. Donny turns again from the window and looks over, patting dew from off his thick and hided brow.

            'That was him, that zealot, Eddie. Says he heard from one or another just a thing or two, vague, it was, it all. I take it it's the call you feared I'd get.'

            Donny looks down, at the ashbutt in the spitoon, resting fecund in a touch of muddied cud.

            'Can I get a cigarette, Solomon?'

            A pause, the palm of his right hand gently stroking his neck's anterior.

            'Sure, boy. Light on up. Have a seat.'

            Donny breathes heavy in the fumey musk of butane as he sets the smoke to weary flickered flame.

            'Said he couldn't tell me a thing, Eddie. Said it'd be likely best you get to stepping over there and quicklike too. Like the wind, he said. Meant to say.'

            'That's it. That's all he said. That he heard a fuckin thing or two. Thing or fuckin two my fuckin ass, is all. And that I best get to steppin over. Motherfucker sees the night and on the phone it's dawn. The wind is breathing, Sol, and I feel it. Evil and it's coming. And I never had a shot.'

            'Hush that pygmy mouth. Dross, the lot of it.'

            Solomon cranes backassed into resting deep among the cushions in the ancient wooden chair. Donny paces nervously, twitching a 6/4 with the cigarette in his left hand, his right still set to stroking on his neck. His brow spots dew in touches and the few that fall to ground get dried up by the shrieking carpet fingers.

            'So what, then? Joker-Lee and Eddie and the rest just sit there and wait while I shit myself all night not knowing?'

            'Say you're in deep shit, they did. Say there's only options few now left to take. They got called up last night by some bitchass sayin that skull of yours is ripe for a dirty leadfuck. Dry and swift, that pillow beggin for a bite. You get the drift. This is your mess, you shitheel kid, and it's best you clean it up in whatever which way rightly you so deftly choose to take. Give me a word, kid.'

            'Flow ride.'

            'Flow ride. That's what they'll call you kid, the Flow Rider, golden with a sash of velvet laced around that aching neck. They'll say it as you flow on down to lockstep, ankle chains biting at your kankles like a bleedy teethplucked cankersore, plucking soggy styrofoam with wooden sticks and spikeends, making lost time up for all the cancer you've let spread in time of freedom. The word you're looking for is Flouride. With an o-u-. Step the fuck on up.'

            The air along the boulevard is shitbrown with the stench and breath of smog and cloudy dust. The city breathes out in and out like flipping shutters, flocking splotchy hooded orbs of tiresmoke and nicotine and spittle from the open ends of iron pipes into tiny crawls of yard and step and walkway.

            'I've gotta go, Sol. I've gotta get out. Far out of here, somewhere eyes won't look. Somewhere those eyes that look won't see. I don't fucking know, Sol. I've gotta go. J-Lee and Eddie keep to waiting long, they boil over. And this is a storm of shit. I don't know fuckall but I need to fucking go.'

            Solomon looks the boy over, distant, sipping chai from candied porcelain, watching. Donny looks about the room. Carpet grey and ceiling grey and world around all grey but walls of blue. Keep those walls to blue, she had said, kneeling over like a wounded child.

            keep em blue so clouds too have a home, and when come clouds know son you're not alone

            She had said.

            'What was it exactly that you did, child.'

            Donny Kilroy takes a mighty puff, breathing out a cloud of cancer, eyes in tango with the ceiling's cottage cheese.

            'There was a man and a woman and there was I and a gun. I still have the gun. It's in the trunk. I need to go, Solomon.'

            Donny's phone rings out a treble cackle. A shoddy old Honda draws up puttering along the curb outside.

            'That's Shawn now. He's taking me to Leezy's directly.'

            A teasaucer lands gently on a weave of knitted cloth. Solomon creaks up and haunches over, elbows resting on knees and chin on closed left palm, he looks into Donny:

            'If you've taken from her, soon she'll have her settled score, you know. The Earth. She gives all. All but if you've taken then in reaping comes the blowing of that evil wind: the wind you feel inside those bones. I know you feel it now.'

            Reilly Solomon creaks up fully from the wooden ancient rocker. He spools around and shuffles quietly over to the door, hat in hand again, unlocking the screen door.

            'Go, and tell those boys it's in the interest of all to do everything they can. They know this. So do I and you. Keep those eyes to narrow heaven, boy.'

            The door props open with a heavy wayward pull. The last of dusklight comes in lapping like a dog's tongue, slowly. The porchlight flickers on.

            'Cry Havoc.' says Donny Kilroy.

            'Keep those motherfuckers leashed, son.'

           

            The city's a virgin.

            Keep it quiet, Goldilocks.

            'She's a tempest, brewin. That she is.'

            Hush it narrow. Hush it narrow.

            The city she is beltlash and hellfire. Gomorrah's cousin in the basement with his lips around a tetherpole, stroking prickled gristle with a knavethumb and a shakey brush.

            'Speak up?'

            Hush. Lightly brush the words off. Calloused tongue. Keep it quiet back there.

            'Not a word. Not a word. Inner city in we is. Two blocks past and we home free and finally, just past shithole after holeshit after track train after gutter we'll be free. Keep it quiet, Goldilocks.'

            'Yes and out from middletown, the okay part of town. Why we live in city dirt and call us City Blue knows Lord Almighty only.'

            'And what is the word.'

            'It seems when mansions cozy up with shacks they spawn out something nasty.'

            Goldie sits up perched there in the corner of the back seat, tying footlong laces into layered bunchy knots.

            'Blackberries. If they were black. I could see it. They could see it too.'

            'Not a word, nigger. The city she is deaf as well.'

            'The city. The naked Earth. All the villages and people all, farmers peasants pygmys, short and tribal savage motherfuckers with they ears all pulled and they lips all stretched. All the world. Everything. Deaf, ya heard.'

            Shawn Truey kicks the gas up, yawning.

            'Berries black and we'd pick them up in baskets. Green paint on the baskets sometimes. Yellow too. The laces. If you could see it I could see it too. If they were black like berries.'

            Shawn & Donny, unison:

            'Shut the fuck up, Goldilocks.'

            The churchbells call out natural a minor sharp in mellow tone. Eight p.m. and final bell fore sunrise. Gathered groups of kindred flock round tables for the gorging on a heavy meal just four blocks uptown proper. Down and southern past the tracks and further, beyond the rows of dregs and hovels, pissgutter creaky ancient homes keep sheltered the unliving from the world without their doors.  Fecund plots grown miletall near with weedy grass line curbsides through to downtown. Donny Kilroy buckles up. Goldie sighs emphatic as Truey eases lightly on the gas. Cole croons velvet from the auto's speaker's horns.

            'You hear anything?'

            Another little sigh. Feline, somehow.

            'About last night?'

            'What you think.'

            'Just that you in heavy shit, maybe. Is all.'

            Husky dark and brown the limbs like elbows thighs and kneebones of a thousand little sprigs of bush and undertree reach west and toward the painted white old church. The bells are lapping final rings of oaken harmony from without bricktowers. The church rests deep and sogging in the mayearth, tilted slight in kindred with its backhouse, sluggard in the field of o'ergrown weed and seedgrass. The house out back bridged narrowly to church by little narrow upward angled halls, the steps inside made whole in slabs of dried up ancient wood, pinned hard fast and to the underboard by rusty ancient nails. The old and oakdoored backhouse lies twenty feet dugout up under, carved into the little hill that crawls from out beneath the church. The rears of the foundation nude and weathertarnished lay in bake through summer sun and bathe through winter rain as all those years pass on unnoticed. Naddy said to not move lying chairs. That there are things you should not touch.

            'Yeah. Is all. You and the rest. My ass, is all. All is all and my ass is.'

            'The sun i think was yellow or was orange or red I can't remember I can't...'

            'There she is. Sixth and Orleans, hoss. Three blocks up. I can see them twin and blinking lights.'

            Naddy said to not move lying chairs. Naddy said to never move them. They were stacked against and up along the blackwall near the backside of the church. A thrush of them all pinned and grey like armies stacked for packing fast in barracks, heavy and against the wall. She had said to never move them. Fingers danced their borders gracing curious in jigsaw lust. A patch of greylight through the dusted glass and flying came in three young doves in white. Two of them leapt bellyup and swollen out the window, falling down and out and without moving came to nothingness at ground. The remnant dove danced left to right in pacing starling stasis. Not a breath. Not a breath. Wind came rushing through the window. Lanternjack and Spiderskin. An evil blowing wind.

            She had said it but you pulled the seat out screeching just a touch and just to see. The tackmetal shriek screamed out for just a little as you pulled it through the backframe of the wooden seat. The thin and angled hinges bucked up popping, stuck out straight and  lockjawed and you pulled on it and just a touch to see and saw it wouldn't easy move. A nudge and just the stuck hinge buckled cocked. With just a tiny nudge a push and just to see a little you pushed harder just a little and the chairback didn't move. A sudden rush and hinges popped out fast again and hard the other way. The sandwiched seat in hands moved swift out toward the chairstack and the wall, tugging with your sandwiched hands and body, plopping hard your frame against the rows of fastpacked soldier's barrackschairs. You tumbled on and down and loose came like a string the grey and woodframed thrush: spooling out like dominoes and rushing down in avalanched adrenaline, plucking savage out the backdoor's lock and handle, leaving open miles of narrow angled stairstep hall for you to deftly backwards heavy fall.

            Truey steps the gas on. Donny lights a smoke. Goldie's neck is craned and downward.

            '...but then we couldn't see the sun or see a thing. The bucket's paint was green, I think. The color of the day it was and...'

            'Grundy says it's heavy shit. Says someone somehow something saw and now they know is all. Is fuckin all, says Sol.'

            'Who and what and what is it they saw. Say they they saw.'

            'In time you'll know, True. Know and more. And soon.'

            '...where were they I don't know I don't know I don't know...'

            ...

            'Dark, outside, it is. I wish it wasn't night as much as this.'

            'Kept eating all the pudding all the ones with little bunches like the knots. I said I loved them and I said it but you ate them and you got all fat and still are, Donny.' Goldie says, angry just a little.

            'I always made sure you had one left after. I'd only ever take them all but one. And you never said you liked them.'

            The cart's wheels cartwheel spun in jingoed frenzy with the palmoil lacquered floor. A rush of men with tanker shoulders lashed the corners of the necro box to safety with their elbows fore the fall. The cart spun out from under toward the stooping wall with velvet plush, lined for brows bent raw before the eyes of watching Father. Shrugging up a few feet and a final pull, the box got up on stage, sliding on and to the stage's softwood runners. Licks of sweat screamed flinging from the flicker of a dozen meaty wrists, their clothes unmucked but spotted with the touch of spotty firstrain. A heavy sigh or two. The sound of clacking metal, loud as bellows from the mouths of babes. The ruckus back out further than the arms of Christ uplifted, high and reigning on the backwall: a clatter like the storm outside in virgin brew. Tempest, God Almighty. Lift the tempest.

            let the rain not downward fall

            let they heads in grief stay dry

            as lucky summer all

            Though the wind will come as always. Clatter like the shots from out a muddy trigger: ruddy bloodied mess, the hounds of hell with teeth all bared for gutting: the city in her sorry virgin sleep. All deaf and beltlashed naked, she. Come sorry wind what may. Keep calling out for something sorry other.  Paint them as you painted home. Dust and plenty of it. The men in rushing trip on each the other, stacking high a kneebruised lot of three men tankershouldered. A clatterlurch in back of church. Firstrain on the mayearth.

            'Leezy keeps a little stack of numbers. Maybe someone he could call,' says Truey.

            'Maybe so. Likely send me packing back to Reilly's.'

            'He is untouched. Not a touch on Solomon.'

            'Yes. And the old story:

            'So it stays until old Gabe comes leaping from his morning shit to blow the dusty horn from out his window. And God says eidi-eidi-ho. The people dance down under, all feathered tarred and soggy, clucking jestbells for a nightstay. Asscracked maggots dustin' they jackets, clean like city faggots, bustin' they ass for a spot in line:

            'The Great and Gilded Welfare Line in the Sky.'

            Shawn and Donny chuckle lightly just a bit.

            '...not a word not a word he said it not a word...'

            'Drop me here. Pull up curbside. Take Goldie on down south to Sagie's. Meet me back here after.'

            'You could see if it was black. The berries. Even without the sun, I'd see it. They could see it too and I'd show them. The laces. But you'd eat them all and keep them and leave none for me.' Goldie says.

            'Shut that rattled cage up swift, Gold. We kin at heart I know but you a crazy mess. Unfog those wire rims and see the world.'

            'Mind yourself, cowboy. That skin you're in is only lizard thick. ' says Truey.

            Donny nods them off out towards the highway. Truey steps the gas and Goldilocks beams cheekflushed through the window, breathing mouthout spots of icey fog on window's pane. Donny Kilroy waves them off and kicks a touch of knotted grass from underfoot. Making east and for the door,  in lockstep and in kindred with the throbbing flush: the seasick flushing throb of open night lays night and droopy eyes wide open: Donny sees this and he does not see the sun.

'It's not that, not exactly.'

Silver wind howls in a swelling: night.

'Not like you said. That it's a dying. It's not that at all.'

Then tell me. Say it like you said it then. That there's a rush.

'A dying. A leaning up against the wall in lineup for the gallows. All I've seen.'

'It's not like you say. It's not that at all. It's like that time you held me up, that morning with the coffee.'

'That there's a rush.'

'That morning you were there and ripping open packs of sugar: cleaving 'em wide and letting fall the tiny crystals down into that musty colored joe: you were there and said to not let things that boil lie: that burning things are always catching fire. Things that burn unseen will catch to fire, you had said.'

'Said I'

'The coffee's too damn hot, you'd always say: that was there as well. That it'd burn your lips and keep you days from tasting, said the coffee's too damn hot and makes you numb, you said. You couldn't taste a thing. You said it but it sat there all the while and I let it keep to boiling 'till it fell into those porcelain old cups we got some yester: steaming rank and pissing out a cloud of bitter musky stuff, you know. And I brought it down on over to the counter and you sat there just watching, humble, proud, i guess, untouched, you sat. I remember. One for you and one for I and you thumbed your thumb quick through the ring of porcelain, and you sat there without a face: I remember. And you took a maiden sip, you always said the first was maiden: numb and swelling on your tongue you said, the dry heat. That burning things are always catching fire. Just a sip and quick and you placed again the porcelain on counter: I could see it then. But I instead just took a mighty sip like always. Did you remember that? That I always had it set hot as the sun. But you couldn't stand it. I could see it then. You cocked your waist then and turned and looked into the space's outer: just a dusky hall and a sorry room. Phantoms, you always said you saw. Ghosts and things. I remember. In the hall. Just wisps and things like tendrils dancing naked in the deep, you said. Like poetry. But then you were there and looking out and then you lit a smoke and said that things that burn unseen will always catch to fire: I could see it then.'

'I never said a thing. Say the old words. Say it like you said it when there wasn't all this clutter.'

'And then I finished mine and sat and looked on beaming at you sitting there in ratty clothes. You said you had to leave soon. And spun around and grabbed your case and papers, leaning over 'cross the counter, you were there. And then your elbow spun on back and heavy over went the coffee, you remember? And it flowed on out and fast and down across my legs and chest, a little through my hair and scalding piping hot on my neck, do you remember? I could see it then. You threw the case down pulsing like a little dog or something, rushed and panicked and without a thought of what to do. And sudden then you pulled on out from somewhere just a mildewed stained old rag and bent to press along my chest and thighs and neck the rag to sop up all the burning, all the burning stuff and there you leaned and looked all sudden still and deep into my eyes and I remember: you could see that I was naked then: in that rush in the heat, that blisterpopping heat and I was naked in my eyes and so were you, do you remember?'

'A dying. What I said. That all there is is dying.'

'And you were keeling over just a little just to catch up with your rushing heart. And you stood up then and shrugged and saw the sun outside without a phantom anywhere at all. And walked on over casual to pick up your old leather case, sopping up the rest of all the joe with just the rag beneath your foot and I could see it then. That in the rush was just the start of something. That there was something grand about the naked swelling vicous bite of something savage: but there always the sun and there was always something underfoot to sop up with a rag. That there were some who got lost in the fury and others that would stay to sop things up. That somehow both could be there, all a part of just the ugly dance we're born to: that I could be naked for you in my eyes and always, even through the sopping. I don't know.'

'I hope it's true, all that. I hope there's truth in that.'

'It's easier to think so.'

'Just say it like you said it before: that there's a rush.'

'You know it. It's old. That there's a rush when a tired soul meets another. That there are things you shouldn't say.'

'I wish your coffee didn't keep me from tasting you.'

'Just remember. It's not a dying. It couldn't be. I could see it even then, it wasn't dying.'

'I'll still be there at the end with a filthy rag, even if we're dying even now.'

The wind howls light and just a touch and through the window. Ash on end of cigarettes goes pinwheel flying skyward.

'Just remember that it couldn't be. It's all we have is that it couldn't be a dying.'

'But it's all I've seen.'