NIGHTS DARKEST
Philip W. Perna
It’s on nights darkest
That I want a cigarette,
A painted woman on my knee,
And one-hundred beers
All lined up like Uncle Sam’s
Not-yet-dead soldiers
(We Want You!),
Waiting to be knocked back,
One after another,
With their twist-off helmets
And bodies studded with sweat.
It’s on nights darkest
That I want to be a madman
With my words.
But I hold out for better,
Something to impress them with—
Like juggling
Or catchy phrases
In Zimbabwean.
Because I know full well
That the pink-bellied dawn
Is just aching
To catch me in some misdeed,
Some foul-feathered lark
Of calamitous proportions.
A momentary lapse into being me
All over again.
The creeping sun—
That imp’s eye! That Mother Hen!—
Will eat up the night,
But never the longing
It will undoubtedly
Leave behind
Like something venereal
And not wholly unpleasant.
