Lyric Confesses

I don’t like to talk about it, to go into too much detail, but sometimes I want the engine to pull me through, through the town, through the tunnel to the next station, smoke pounding up like a fist in the air, so certain. I know impulse—the first wasp’s breath against graying flesh, that moment between the bud and the leaf. But at even a mention of what comes next, I balk like the almost-sleeper startled awake. I see the cracked ceiling, the shadow the antique light traces—a tear-like drop stretching toward my pillow. Outside a lone voice sings, stumbling home from the bar. I know there is a streetlight, a wrought iron bench, a newspaper rumpled in the gutter, but I will not pull the curtain to look.