Last Bender

Oily flames flicker through the iron fence

between the green gauze of ornate lamps

buried in trees, a few ragged stars of pink

caught in the branches. Make way

for the pain of extenuation

in a Bowery bar with bright lights

and no pool table, where faces bloom

in vacuum tubes of steins and snifters.

The heat is large and diesel and we are here

and there, where bougainvillea

hung above canals, darkened by the sun

I can never disinter from water