My Friend

I loved bar room fights.
I fought the biggest meanest men
I could find.
the patrons thought I was
brave.

but it was something else, something
that walked and slept and sat with
me. it ate with me when I ate,
it drank with me when I drank.
I saw it everywhere: in loaves
of bread, on the back of a mouse
running up the wall, I saw it through
torn window shades, I saw it
in the bodies of beautiful women;
I never saw it in the sun but I saw it in
insects; and I saw it riding in buses
and trolley cars;
I saw it in the dresser drawer when I
pulled it open,
I saw it in the faces of
bosses with their dumb wet lips and
little rivet eyes: blue, brown,
green;
I heard it in the click of timeclocks,
saw it spread like powder across the
faces of my landladies;
I saw it it on the bar
stairways
leading to the 2nd
floor of some rooming house in
Houston, New Orleans, in St. Louis,
in L.A., in Frisco;
and I saw it in the doorknobs and I saw
it in the rooms, sitting on the
beds
waiting nicely...
and in some bar after hours of drinking
somebody says, "hey, Hank, you
ever tried Big Eddie?"
Big Eddie grins, I see it in his
teeth, I finish my beer,
nod at him, get up, walk to
the rear entrance, Big Eddie and
the crowd following, and outside
I see it in the moon and the
bricks
as the patrons lay their bets
I am the underdog, and as Big
Eddie charges I see it in his
feet and on the buttons of
his shirt and I hear a horn
sound somewhere far off, and
it's as decent a thing as a man
can know.

-Buk