Slumber Rumblings

I stand in the January evening
enjoying a rare solitary cigarette
at the base of my stairwell.
Everyone's your friend in Beacon
if you've got a pack to share.
Truth be told I never mind.
It leads to conversation, stimulation
of the brain, signals shot
to nerve endings reminding you
that there's more to it
than where the rent will come from
next month and how your father
sleeps at night.
The homeless, a laid-off neighbor
some slob walking home from
a minimum wage job--
they all stop and share a story
for the mere price of fifty cents.
It's a bargain on both ends.

A boy about my age
walks a woman to her door
on the opposite side of the street.
His plaid flannel shirt clashes with
his sneakers, the air temperature
collides with his words in the form of
steam pouring from his mouth
to accompany his desperate plea.
"Tonight was nice. Maybe I'll see
you again sometime."

The lie is coming. He's too jaded
and cocksure to see it, but it's there.
Thousands of years of perfected rejection
escape her lips like it has from her mother's
at one time or another
and her mother's mother's and every
combination of possessives therein.
"Yeah," she says with a shiver in her voice
implying that goodbyes should be brief.
The world's limpest hug ensues as I suck on my
Marlboro, grateful to be out of the hellish
woods of first-dating. I flick my butt and walk upstairs
leaving the stinking scene to play itself out
like a fire the gods have pissed on for kicks.

There's a glass half-full of water
waiting on my coffee table when I enter
my apartment. It's been there for days.
It isn't mine. I smile and hang my coat up
right next to my holsters
feeling blessed to be defeated
by someone other than myself.