Her cheek still shining from spittle and booze,
she could not agree what it was. The wind spun,
flapped, or jerked--that slow howl--precursor
to this immensity always standing before her; she lives;
she bears
that which abducts her attention, reaching abruptly
for her sex, money, or her cigarettes. And just after,
her own thoughts are quietly tempered, lessened, like
a sky crowded with clouds above an oddly-altered landscape
with warehouses, loading docks and fences, abandoned
cars--she leaves them alone with their feckless details.
Instead she dares not to scratch the itch, choosing
to piss in the low weeds along the littered roadside.
[ rdking ]