I wear my grandfather's robe. Tonight I smooth the frayed elbows and knot the rope stretched loose from a settled waist. The housewalker sleeps with open eyes. Diner The waitress's hand seems Formica hard. Erasures from her smile crease her cheeks without expression.
Conversations run like broken eggs.
From the highway smoke ushers in a formless man, his closed lips telling where he's been. His blood becomes coffee in heavy cups. Tintinnabula lingers in the ear and in the bent prongs of once-stolen forks. In forgotten sunglasses neon repeats itself in reverse. Fingers pass over initials etched forever in some dented chrome.