It’s the insomnia,
not the sadness
that makes me a scribe
to these night songs.
The weight of a room
in each welded hour.
I read, or I write
from my second floor
lookout.
Sleep might be lodged
somewhere between
the phone call
that doesn’t come
and the now warm beer
waiting on my night table.
But I forget all of this
as a pulsing, orotund growl
calls me to the open window.
From the street below
the chrome silhouette of a Harley,
a firedrake on rims and rubber,
grips the curve of the intersection,
slows down, then pushes on
with a combustive rumble.
The first of the season—
lonesome harbinger
ahead of the procession.
But soon,
gleaming metal machinery
& leather-clad riders
will thunder through
the leafy shadows
of hinterland towns
for at least the next ten days.
In the asphalt distance
the single red taillight
burns like a match,
then vanishes under
the blue vault of night.
I press a finger to the screen.
My ears chasing,
with a sudden lust,
after the belled throttle-chop
that spills & fades—
somehow absorbed like rain
into the mountainside.
Still, the heft of the
floral wall-papered room—
withered, palimpsestic,
peeling in the corners.
I taste the beer.
Pull down the shade.
It’s nearly summer.
Tomorrow I’ll find
the neighbor’s peonies
have opened.
The burden of
such supple heads
bobbing in tongueless
communion.
Slender-throated stalks
begging for a truss
under the noon sun.