A Frame

Bourbon Street clanged
like a Christmas tree on a train
He never blinked.
I’m going to build you an A-Frame, he said
I built an instant dream on
a stranger’s tweaker stare
wider than the sky
He’d taken enough of something
to wish away convention
I swam in it too.
Marry me tonight, he said.
I’m going to build you an A-Frame
We’ll have lots of babies
in Oklahoma
Be my wife.
His wife, for a few hours
In a cloud of meth, rum and coke, insomnia
Did he mean it?
Let’s get drunk on promises
As I laid him down on sweat-soaked asphalt
hundreds of years of delirium
A city that slouches with lust and magic
Widened eyes that didn’t close
Don’t ever leave me
Somewhere the smell of sweet fried dough
called the morning
Drink me. Cover me.
I can build you an A-Frame
Be my wife?
A cowboy’s girl
Never let me go, he said
Sparkling beads floating
on the Mississippi
until consumed by its timeless churn