I am seventeen, standing by your door, squinting at sky,
right beside you, lifetimes apart,
that’s the picture. Hunger eats you,
shoes soak, you spit venom
at the pavement and cannot understand
what is not happening.

You decide to walk the streets,
shelter from rain by moving, not speaking to anyone
is the only way.
You feel your head is too heavy,
falling on your shoulders.

War on the horizon and the streets of pent-up violence
make hate you can taste like the nothing you are not living on.

I feel your arm, taut under your worn-out jacket,
face drawn, skin sprayed on. For the first time
you look at me closely and decide not to speak,
walk quicker as if that resolves anything.

This isn’t really happening, you say, a piece of fiction,
dolled-up to look like the truth. A man pisses against a wall,
steam rises and all the rest I could describe but I leave that
to your imagination. You can trust it. It is truthful
as this bike I’m riding. Let this truth win the day,
regardless of what I say. No matter what I do.

Tom Kelly

This is a new poem that Alan Dent of Mistress Quickley’s Bed has just accepted.