gone
she was stripping off
her old nail
polish
couldn't decide
what color
to put on after and
then she
stood
straight up
drained her wine
and yelled
TO HELL WITH
IT,
WE'RE GONNA BE LATE
I'LL DO THEM ON THE WAY
then swept four
colors
off the table into her
purse
ran out the door
on her
heels
into the street
and
so
sudden
a lock of her
hair
whirls like a streamer
stuck from the
spokes of a
Cragar
SST
wheel
and then the
Ford Toyota
fucking Mazda
is gone
I
pick up one of
her shoes and her
purse and there are
nail
polish
bottles rolling almost
playfully down the
street and
red
everywhere but
I notice
none of these
bottles
are
broken
-
I am aware of the
beeping and
wheezing
the moans of the dying
and of the already dead
just needing
that
final touch from
a stranger clean-shaven
thinking of his
house
with fifty windows
and his
foreign sports car
stick shift
model
while the
poor die
I hold her hand and
notice a streak
of
the silver nail
polish that she
missed and
almost
unconsciously
scratch it away
and the regret swells
immediately
like an
odor in the room
I have erased the
last memory that
I
knew of you
BACK