trout

1

Mark Wallace

Some guy at the back of the bus was complaining
that he saw angels and no one believed him, that he'd been drunk
ever since the last war had flowered in the last desert
until next time. It was hard to know what he wanted:

recognition, sanity, a blow job, a twenty? Something like another life
where nails don't fly at faces in dreams?
So there's always more evidence, more chance to create
a picture of what's getting lost, the pleasure

of detailing ruin on a fume-heavy day, looking around
for the next jolt. It's either that or administration
the buildings seemed to say, but when buildings begin to talk
and there are complaints about angels, it's hard to step off the bus

and not feel battered by the pavement, not dream all night
of a lower risk fund than the mind at odds.