Helpline / Hold Music

I fumble with the details like I’m shuffling a pack of cards underwater, awkward and
slow, as rigid certainty gives way to mulch. I said / she said / he said nothing, and the
rain blew through the open window, and the bus left town with nobody waving
goodbye. Early Bowie on a cheap record deck. Pills swallowed in a stranger’s room.
Streets became sick veins, pumping poison in ever-decreasing circuits, and the city’s
flesh and bones grew tough and slow. In a seedy loft, I cut cards with rough speed
and tied a snake around my neck. I said / she said / he said nothing, and the rain
rained forever in a single night, the waters rising with all the predictability of a myth
we take for granted. Forty years later, I am in a room full of straggly pot plants and
empty boxes. The door may or may not be locked, but I’m too tired to check. The
details are clear as crystals in a run-down museum, my pockets full of business cards
of people I’ve already forgotten. Voices crack behind paper-thin walls. He says / she
says / I fumble with even the simplest expressions.