Tutu Tues

man in a rumpled blue coat

cut straw hair and crazy eyes
paces a sidewalk storefront
worn blanket display


stolen wares at a distance
police metal barricade
a pointless backdrop
undone like a zipper

follows the black fence
the cracked concrete
sloping away
away from the nightclub

papered front door and wan spotlight

wrought iron gate over acid-scribed glass
air dense with exhaled breath

unwavering stench of piss


streetlamp out on the corner
erases, most things invisible
intersection oozing darkness
stained street shadow frightening

almost supernatural
coagulating vortex echoes

forced half-light
a voice fading
drifting junkies and 
crackheads like field mice
mutter away from the corner
away from the dark

in the tiny light
through the gaps between flyers
clots of human arms gesture
bartenders tiny against brick

glutted crush of people
sandwiched and thirsty
desperate, laughing in tandem
music thudding murmurs

through the glass