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Evening News
(for Steve)

There's been too many long nights,
too many cigarette butts poached,
too many two o'clock a.m. hours
spread blue across bedsheets
in sleepless expectancy. Money
matters. Sometimes girls don't.

Factory air hangs from here
to Crete like sky. I'm alive,
drinking old wine and remembering
when I lived in the daily sighs
at sight of a woman's small
back creased across a morning yawn.

Yes, baby, I lost my middle
class to a slot machine, my youth
to big city, FM radio dreams.
Time now alludes to hard work,
a steady string of unfriendly girls,
cheap food and sad evening news.

Fast roads lead from here, windswept
by weeds and names of distant places.
Too many laundromats, and mid-town
taverns, too much sky and snow –
clocking in, clocking out, coming
home again and again and again.

And, maybe for a moment, the wind
will pause just west of Crete,
snow won't fall on Sunday night,
and she'll return by way of love
on roads I almost left Omaha by –
toward sun, toward city, toward home.

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