The night's cracked and trailed
Moon-glow and white dust coating lawns.
A single car sits across the road
In the catacombs of a rising development.
Lonesome and alive on a street tomb.

Smoke curls from the exhaust pipe.
Red light flowing out the back.
White light cutting out the front.
The chill doesn't bite. It infiltrates
Cha-cha dances under my skin.

I tap a leather toe to the silence.
Try to write verses in fog-breath
with a numb tongue.
Mouthing instead of whispering.
You can only whisper so many lines
before your teeth start to chip and sharpen.

Solitude is a blacksmith's wheel
against my face. A double-bladed
rapier, dagger fingernails, a noose
made out of Christmas lights
and garland.

My fingers twitch in the weak air.
Winter is stealing oxygen. Gashing holes
in the atmosphere. Making it thin
bare like silk and fine hair.

Soon I'll walk back the miles
Through the rough weather, the blitz
of cold powder and slits of pavement.
The ricochet of .22 questions in my skull:
"Am I any different?"
I taste ozone and tobacco
the lingering tang of brown liquor.
My eyes water a little. The world's
a hard edge to my head.

It wraps its nimble fingers
around my throat and pulls
me back to the bed room.
Back to a notebook and sad acoustic songs.

But I still move on
Another mile forward.
Grinding soil under soles.
And forgetting those
weed-suffocated cemeteries.