KINKY ROSCOE

In the Village you get the tang of dead pennies and vinyl
spinning on your Bourbon tongue
and everything’s Kinky Roscoe with the jump kids
on Broad Street and the Blacks
polishing rimshots off of stars they can’t see.
Hubcaps vanish like wallets at a crosswalk-
and the rain smells like iron
binging Detroit with fume Kabuki
as falafels alight upon the caverns of asphalt
like a flock of agnostic Finch
migrating to the Temple
of your Migraine.

She’s gone now and nothing can stop you
from becoming a ghost, unless your letters
were never written on purpose
and your absence was the
Plan.

The Jungle is a
stainless steel fog
of Blown Cover
in a war on the
Senseless.

You can’t catch
a Breath
without Catching
Hell
in the Bargain
with a Devil
You Know-

Will Leave.