The music of wet diesel brakes a serenade
We see each other, faces red-slashed, grim
and the others beyond
Mute, raucous boiling crowd
and us the bits of turf-toned herb dancing
atop this gangland soup
You thrust and you weave, the snick-snap of leather and
steel and ragged lungs sawing the air in and out of me
as I lunge back at you
No stars more cross'd than 58th and Vine
No oil and water more yolked apart
Meet me by Morty's deli you said
Or mortuary
They sounded the same
And knowing what I should not know your rose
brought his crew to meet yours
by the burnt out brass streetlight while patrol cars
turned in their uptown sleep, dream murmurs a-fogging every
pane of splintered glass in town
Stab again and feel the ache
The broken-down moment when
two blades
two gangs
two hearts
collide, and rebuffed, collide again
chipping flint and graffiti till there's nothing and no one
on the corner of 58th and Vine
but a burnt out brass mourner and no fog to slow the morning traffic,
all wounds accounted for by the pelting ash rain
Those loving hands no more so gentle.
Lon Prater is the lucky father of two smart girls, a stunt kite flyer and a writer of odd little tales. Among other places, his work can be found in Writers of the Future XXI and the Stoker-winning anthology Borderlands 5. Find out more at www.LonPrater.com.