It’s 5:47 p.m. and gray
is creeping over the brownstones.
The pigeons have retreated
to the parks nearby
where the grass and gravel and moss
shelter them from the flocks
that are about to descend.
Already I can see neon
sparking to life down the alleys,
casting spectral glows
on the dented garbage cans
full of yesterday’s glittery, beer-stained mess.

A ghost-town,
an alpine peak
just ravished by an avalanche,
the only life forms—a three-legged bitch
gnawing on a cow bone
and the swarming gnats attracted to the smell
of urine and stale beer.

She lives down the alley:
a whimpering gyp of a guard dog
attempting to keep secret the gambling hole
her feeder runs without a liquor license.
She’s the chronicler of Gay St.
Even if she doesn’t see us,
she can smell
the Marlboro’s, the Kool’s, the pot
on the businessmen who fogged up their cars
after getting off work late,
the aroma of musk
and cum on the adulterers
whose wives are at home
drinking themselves to sleep
without taking their mascara off,
the eccentric colognes,
the Eau de Toilettes, the cheap deodorants,
and the fried chicken
on the sweaters
of the big guys who just sit at the bar and drink,
drink, drink, never talking to anyone
except (maybe) the bartender and sulking
in their fat mid-life depressions.


Then the bars open their steel doors,
music bellows and crashes
in the street. Before the club kids
come prancing down the street,
snorting their low-grade coke,
I join the fat guys and the adulterers
at a slick plywood bar
and say, “Round on me!”

Before the foam evaporates
off the golden liquid
I hear a faint grunt;
the only thanks I am going to get.

09/16/2008

Posted on 09/17/2008
Copyright © 2025 S. Pelham Flood