Night Roulette

by Rebecca Liberatore

It is a simmer
in Howton by now, left
                             with the entrails
               of skimlight, uneven
on pavement & a whole
wind fullswills the scape,
it’s like the syrup, clouded
& so thick you can
quarter it with a hand
                 if kept straight
                 & only that seems
to say something like:
where’re you going?
it’s 3am & no one
gives

in Howton, Roth pocks
golfballs off the Tropic Vista
complex with a racket
         unlacing
                       in swings,
rubbernubs nudged off
shinglepanes as he slides
down the roofside
in inches & freshbabe
                  that sucked hand
sanitizer off each valley
of its palm was let
alone to sleep & screeches, (most
cries steamtrail, fizzing out midway
in the bedding) & the parents
coo at each other, all
lay in the same room,
                                we, rockhit
                                in the chest
by whistles of a cagetrain,
a 30sec flight of rust
that coaltracks into dark,
                 or by the pass
                       of a single
vehicle with an amphistereo,

are patient
in Howton, we’re waiting 4hrs
for the suffocation of radio
                              livestatic, faroff,
                  someone’s coughing fit,
the few headlights that bluecast
on windows,
                  half open.

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