by Pete Simonelli

Five p.m. and the ice cracks, settling.
I clip the lights, brush the felts,
fill the sinks
and re-tie my boots. Not a soul in here.

What happens
is you get stuck in a slender photo album,
cut out of frame and spectrum but cradling
a large white poodle after one too many bourbons
— your focus
a serial undertaking with vexing aerial points.
Quote: Never meant to be.

By 5:30 it’s a coffee and a cigarette, traffic soughing by
in a light but ceaseless rain. To the west house lights bristle
through a gathering mist on the hill,
and a junky appears at my side.
Plucking butts from the ashcan, he asks me
if I might have a rubber band to spare.
When I come back he holds the door ajar, listening to Bukka
White sing “Jesus Died on the Cross to Save the World.”
Could he come in?
I need every excuse to be alone, and humbly
shut the door.

My eyes
are my worst defenses, gouged by the seeing of things
as they are and must be. There is no dim or kept light
that dresses pity. Time does away.
It strips and bares, wracks desire, until the older body
comes out cleansed.
Naturally, I take the blame: city lights and what transpired
under them.
The holding of hands, the strokes of thighs— all
the gradual displays that

Even the smallest beads of rain took in entire motives.

PETE SIMONELLI lives in Brooklyn, NY, working as a bartender. For the last seven years he has been the vocalist for the San Francisco-based band, Enablers (www.myspace.com/enablers).