Just About Dark

Ketchikan Alaska 1994

Sitting on musty carpet

in a stranger’s room 

our backs against the door

you said I miss New Orleans

I dialed the short-wave

sifting the hiss and crackle 

searching for noise 

we could recognize as music

Slow drift of ragtime notes 

through the open window

stars tangling in pines

a rainforest in the north

our pallet on the floor

wrapped in old sheets and sleeping bags

that smelled like rain

damp green sigh from unseen leaves in the 

dark we touched and slept

When you sat up to light a cigarette

the sheet slid off your shoulder

I lay still watching the silhouette

of your neck and breast

and the sudden

match flame became

a cup of light in your hands

touching the edge

of your turned away face

soft from dreaming

then fierce against the smoke

Southern kids on the skids

in the great frontier

we were beautiful and devastated

smokey angels wasted

on broken bells swaying lights

no delight was spared 

and I’ll never forget or regret 

any of the nights

we shared.