Hart Crane Slept Here

Each morning, downward, Maria Stella Maris Church glows out the passenger-side window. Further, the corner where the Salvation Army stood and Hart Crane spent the night. At a shore-edge bar, where they'd finally met up, they shared bottles, walked out toward being together, a hotel, and then got rolled. Crane spent the night in the shelter. E., bruised, shipped out the next morning. The hungover poet took the train back toward Altadena. From my car, not much has changed; I see young stevedores shrug off last night's drunk. Past New Dock Street, a cigarette splits, balloons into orange under my wheels. Hot ash. My unkindness is thrown over and over. Door to door, a ride is for what I've squirreled away, not riches but a pile: the ways no thing mattered, how a kiss didn't count, how a friendship could be severed by a coyote walking between us or a dream. My windshield is a tracery. Long ago, down Gaffey, we raced in my hairdresser's sports car. She drove with her knees. Her perfume, the want, filled the heated car. We drove once to her husband's parking lot, switched cars—he'd shipped out for days—and toured in his jeep. But in this home I've chosen, there's a church on every corner and mourners in between. Boys pair up and nothing happens. Girls hold hands. We get rolled. They ship out. Liquor is drained. The train returns to Altadena. Mary, star of the sea, watches over the gem of a filthy port like the hawk, diamond-shaped ahead. She lets me pass five days a week. On my way uphill there are ovals of golden light, then no one home. Shoeless child, chimes, and stevedore off work. Burnt lawn. Hellhole. Haven. Next stop, my house.