I’m standing on the bridge, if you come here I have a beer in the bag and two gloves, so if you are cold you can wear a glove on your right to keep warm, and we can hold hands to keep your left warm,
as the cars careen past we can breathe the wind through our smiles -
I was wandering the woods and slept in a duck blind, I heard wings flapping close to me and then a rifle shot and a splash, the full moon panicked and rolled across the sky like a gray marble, and tore through all clouds in its way -
I drink the air if its warm enough, I leave it inside of me to heat me up, because my heart became cold a long time ago, I smoke to loosen up my lips and someday I will tell you how I came here, for now I can only see properly when there is smoky air, I see faces assembled out of wisps and they call out my name but when I turn my head all I see is traffic -
Can you lend me some shoes so I can make it over there? My shoes get stolen whenever I go to sleep, or sometimes filled in with shit, my socks are tearing open and my skin is tearing open too, kids come with spray cans and once I asked them for socks or food and they kicked and pissed on me instead, I want to sleep in the empty millionaire summer houses and keep those ghosts company, misery loves company -
Sometimes I step into the woods and if I blink I see corpses hanging by nooses from the branches, naked but wearing blankets, thick wool blankets, they hang by their necks from old stiff branches way above me, I see blood dripping to the ground, the ground littered with take out containers and a deep bed of leaves, I know some people sleep beneath, their graves are marked by the stone they tripped on when they fell in, collapsed in the cold, I cover them with my body but they never warm up, I cut my hand open so they can drink it but of course they drink it all -
I reached out for the moon, the moon was a rolling coin that night, maybe a nickel, it rolled into the horizon, into a slot in the horizon and it was a payment for the day to begin, like turning on a pinball machine, I reached out and if I had grabbed it I would have had an extra nickel, but then who would pay for the day to begin?
I buried him in the leaves, I buried her in the leaves, the bodies I saw hanging from branches fell apart, each limb floated away instead of falling, the limbs formed faint flocks of birds, maybe every flock passing over is actually a body cut apart, and when the birds land in moonlit clearings they reassemble into people again and walk laps around town, to consecrate the town, to protect the town, to curse the town -
I blinked again and the bodies were gone
I ran to the bridge, the sun wasn’t up yet, I took a fishing pole and tossed the hook and fished out the sun and tossed it into the sky and it flew across the sky so quickly most people slept through it and didn’t know a day had passed, but I lived through that short day and have added it to my age -
in the evening I stood in my own smoke, in front of the train station, I saw jesus throw a cross necklace into the air and catch it, mary slept on the steps nearby, she had an affair with a human man, god was jealous but he didn’t tell anyone for fear it would be recorded in scripture, and he always forgets to say ‘this is off the record’, I knew she was dreaming up wishes she could only tell to the devil since her and the lord have some history already -
I slept under the bridge, the cars passed over me, at first it was loud and aggressive but as my dreams got larger the sounds got smaller and all I could hear were memories of old mistakes I made when I thought I was always right, but now I know I am always wrong, and only in that belief am I correct, ironically -
