Here It Comes

I abandoned a Pinto on the Hollywood freeway.

A couple weeks later I answered the phone.

The guy said this is Officer McGillicuddy.

I said fuck me. McGillicuddy?

At LA County holding, some white dude

asked if  I wanted a cigarette. He rolled tobacco

in a sheet of  Bible paper. I was thinking

he’d demand I shank a guy.

They let me out before I could smoke it.

My brother’s done time. Me, I’m soft.

But I’da shanked a man for that cigarette.

That’s the way it was. Now I’m in a play.

I’m lonely in it. Everyone talks to themselves

& each of their others. They get half bare.

I want just one of them to show me

how & where to stand. Yesterday

I found myself crumpled in the passenger

seat of an old friend’s car, weeping, trying

to talk basketball. I couldn’t stop.

I start a new apartment with two rooms, nothing

on the walls. Yellow rug, sofabed, one

billion books. A new numbing.

One compelling fact concerning my disaster?

I never saw it coming.