He wakes up dreaming of college girls—
wasting another bogus life. Nights
spent hustling cigarettes, days in a
cheap hotel. He returns to the same
blindness, an alley of alcohol.
There he sees you, stranger, woman of
his furious dreams—angel leaning
with your wings against the dirty bricks.
Your eyes are deep as snowdrifts, your lips
like quicksand, teeth like beautiful knives.

Your father’s jewels hang down between your
breasts like curses. You want to enter
his tennis court of vicious desires.
He stands there smoothing down his mustache.
Your love grows oddly useful then, in
the darkness of this city, a strange
city, guarded by spiders. The birds
in the little park grin like demons.
Together you move into the old
abandoned theatre down the street.