After the fire

after Hollywood streets, with pimps and gum-stained humanity

after lusty stop lights with glue sniffing response time

after swerving soberly through too many lanes and lights

after a casual stroll through the dregs of some 12-step red light balcony district

watching cockroaches scurry away from the transients in disgust

standing alongside the 20something Texan nymphs, draped in scarves

and tight jeans and rehearsed nuance. There was the deliberately tattered

couple who just took a spill on their bike, some gladhanding

some lipsmacking some cracker barreling some glint of hope

at the end of the vacuous tunnel of it all. I just wanted to go home

and friends were becoming brothers, that is to say

we were going to start

beating each other down

but instead we had pancakes

and commiserated

we harangued the server,

her name was Anastasia

she had pretty red hair

and seemed dissatisfied

but then there were lights on inside

after all just when we’d given up hope

me I gave up the ghost and half an army of diagnoses for her

before she even took our order. after all, Hollywood streets

would reveal nothing, nothing at all, just this,

just some blasphemous splooge- filled sea

of untouchable things

like this               

and nothing

more.

-January 17, 2004

East LA, California.