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.