[art history]

pushing ninety on the turnpike;

listening to soft grunge: so american,

white lies and white supremacy.

youth – beauty – adrenaline –

clinging to these childhood fantasies,

desperate to turn body to hard cash.

and this is summer in the city,

writing love songs in funeral homes,

pretending life is like art

when the blind truth is

cold coffee in an empty car park –

sun city with its windows

all smashed in, blue glass

on concrete, and imagining life

in a one-light small town

with nothing to remind us

of warm days on the east coast.

someone saying in a voice

like a sunrise: one day, a window

closes on the sound of blues music,

that could be new orleans.

these quiet nights,

speaking in line breaks to sleep

and turning sun to shadow.