The American Night Listens

His longing, strung on the American night, knew its own slavage.

Debt-peon to such lean solitudes. Drink with me, please.

Precious friend, you cannibal of elders, your maimed

shoes, lager-lame step, made a hundred-storied ledge

of any sidewalk: hesitation-cut cracks. Forgive me this

going. I always miss you. You thought your uncombed

thoughts and spoke them, penned dense letters so

manically amped and you still must, I guess,

for others somewhere. We two in the post-party

dark as MacGowran does Malone Dies, and the lines

of stereo lights are a landing field below, blinking red

in fog. How your mind then seemed a soaring lamp.

Tell me something important, you said (drunk, dead

drunk again), and I was stumped. Friend, I still am.