dog night

Noite de cão

This is one of them no-show nights.

Her man gets sidetracked on the way home,

stopped by some friend who pops up, lighting up

bright as an orange-bulbed street lamp

just as a fog sets over the city. An ecstatic

'Man, where you been all these years?'

and grins as wide as embraces are hurried,

and they sit down at the  bar on the corner

on weathered red stools with yellow foam

gaping  from  cracks and  the

 glasses empty, one after another,

as the night shrinks before them, stories

winding up and up and then down again

like a life when it gets stuck at the place

no doors want to open.

Back at her place

his lady is sleeping, television blaring and the telephone

off the hook buzzing alone into the madrugada.