Patrick Reilly

I’ll call her Emelia
because I never
knew one

She never left salty
sweet perfume
on bedsheets

Or a small stray
pink sock on
a dirty rug

In here everybody says the same thing
so you’d better say it louder than the others.
They’ll tell you that the footprints of ten generations
are erased daily by bicycle tires and graffiti.

It’s easy to be drowned out by the kids
with the right kind of bad tattoos.
They style themselves Knight Street Sailors
in the new West End Oceana.

Ghosts never really leave this town.
They just get themselves new haircuts.
And I suppose I never really left either,
so I won’t cry on moving day, even if I should.

I spit the salty-sour taste of
a jackhammer hangover onto
the cracked blacktop, worn grayish-white by
a New England winter.

There’s an American flag
beaten to grayscale in the neighbor’s yard.
It looks war-tested. I suppose it is,
if you buy that kind of thing.

I take a left, and see the patch
of crabgrass end-zone that my
skinny legs churned for as if life
might stop on the one yard line.

I had my first fight there. My cheeks
were numb and my knuckles frayed
in the dumbest and most important fight that
I, or Billy Vincent would ever have.

I’m not ordering The Usual
even if i’ve guzzled the same
mug of stale beer in this bar room
night after night for a month.

I’d prefer that you didn’t know my name,
let alone the type of oil it takes for me
to say the kinds of uncomfortable things
that I’m sure I’ve said, but don’t remember.

Sitting here feels like being rained on
when you’re already too wet to care.
So I suppose I’ll just sit, drink, and pay
crumpled bills for free and pretty smiles.

The only faith I have ever had
is in the involuntary honesty
of physical reactions.
A punch. A kiss. Hot or cold.

Peeling the sweat-soaked label
off of Tuesday’s last bottle,
I thought I’d walk home
in the kind of dirty rain you get here.

But I’d be much better off
pissing down my own leg,
grabbing myself a taxi cab,
and calling it an early night.

The Hill still smells like it always did,
with piss and perfume left lingering
like pussy breath and old croutons.
Neither is listed under Today’s Specials.

Capicola.
Provolone.
On a roll.
To go.