watcher

the city is afraid of itself. it licks its own lights and smiles a bulletproof glass. the city hides its nipples underneath the suds of lamplight.

it's always looking for its own shot out star. its friends kiss with one eye open. its lovers take their hair down, back to the wall.

and women in their turned lips and skirts that hang down from the bar stool. they sway and keep an eye glued to the barback mirror.

the cooks are always wearing latex. the manager is in the back behind the mercury. hand on the cellphone. one foot out the door. and everyone knows the pimp walk is archaic, but we all keep leaning down into it. one hand tucked somewhere a knife might be.

the night is under a bushel of wind. the moon is overkill. must be something up. the busses slip through the night dodging the cops with nightvision windows of green glow.

the cops try not to smile. they try not to smile and they whip through red lights in the cold.

we go back to our old ways. the reason brothers used to clink their steins. we slosh our poison back and forth between glasses just to make sure. we taste each other's tears for salt. we check each other's sleeves for swords. we listen for the saliva we make when we take off our clothes.

that's how it is, here. the chain on the door is restless. the wind is in the walls.

reflection

today i looked out the window and realized nobody is listening. by that i mean...

... there was a face looking back at me. a face - which looked unconnected to its body, through the leaves and the bbq grill grating and the porch fencing. a face that took on the look of kabuki. sat wafting and golden and removed from my room and my 60 watt bulbs and my bedding. i thought i might wave to the face and it might lift off and drift away into the settling blue afternoon and the summer night birds.

but the face stared back at me. and i looked away and looked back. and looked away and looked back. the face had large flat eyebrows and it did not smile and it did not laugh. and it did not look away.

and i looked away and looked back and lifted another fork of food while i stared at the face. then...

... she got up and went back into her apartment.

across the way. she lives in the apartment where the old man used to sit on his porch for hours and never look my way, it was like looking at a pond of leaves that coughed from time to time and the leaves scattered.

for months. i walked naked through my house and sat naked with the door open. he never looked this way once. cataonic coughing pond.

then he disappeared.

now, she sat there leaned into my window. nothing dividing us but screen and cat and leaves and the dropoff of stories between our porches. her face could be in my room.

unblinking.
unapologetic.
masked...

but unfettered.