This guy,
he’s been dead for a long time,
he catches us as we’re coming around the corner.
We’re moving quickly, outrunning the traffic. We want to make
the movie on time. He has bugs all over his hands
and doesn’t think anything is funny anymore.

He’s come a long way
since the first time he showed up in my dreams
and has only one more thing to tell me before he finally
moves on to make a living predicting the future
for all the lonely Manhattan shut-ins.

He’ll be richer than Paul McCartney,
but I don’t think
they’ll ever let him leave that street.

The girl on my arm doesn’t speak.
Her face is hidden with wild hair that offers
no resistance to the wind and keeps
changing colors.

She clings to me,
and I suspect that thousands
of fingers are pushing through.

My ribs and teeth
are going to be broken
long before the previews,
to say nothing of the masterpiece.

This guy,
he’s been mean since before my grandfather was born,
comes up behind me and whispers something in my ear
about stealing a car later that night.

To hear him tell it
you’d think it was high time
I woke up to danger that’s all over the first floor
and is only going to climb higher.

He doesn’t say anything else.
Just makes his stupid suggestion
and leaves. Goes back to sitting
on the hood of his stupid car.

I’m pretty sure this has been a dream for years.
There are billboards with family photos and all my old
friends forgive me via postcard for that unpleasantness
from last Halloween.

Tattoos move off bodies,
down the legs, backs and arms
Into the streets that are half-dust and winter,
half-concrete in the middle of fall.

The girl starts whispering,
but it’s all gibberish, and it’s all somehow
coming from at least a mile away behind me.

Something tells me she’s had it in for me from the beginning.

I start to get angry
but don’t know how to put that
to good use.

02/08/2010

Posted on 02/08/2010
Copyright © 2010 Gabriel Ricard