Act #2

For Marlene Dietrich

I took love home with me,
we fixed in the night and
sank into a stinging flash.

¼ grain of love
          we had
2 men on a cot, a silk
cover and a green cloth
over the lamp.
        The music was just right.
I blew him like a symphony,
   it floated and
          he took me
down the street and
          left me here.
3 AM. No sign.

          only a moving van
          up Van Ness Avenue.

Foster’s was never like this.

I’ll walk home, up the
         same hills we
             came down.
He’ll never come back,
          there’ll be no horse
              tomorrow nor pot
tonight to smoke till dawn.

He’s gone and taken
my morphine with him
Oh Johnny. Women in
      the night moan yr. name

From Supplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners, edited by Joshua Beckman, CAConrad, and Robert Dewhurst © 2015 John Wieners Literary Trust, Raymond Foye, Administrator. Reprinted with the permission of The John Wieners Literary Trust.