The End

The man who is writing
the end of the world
began like this

he sat down in a chair
beside a window
closed his eyes
& waited for the steam
to finish rising from
a cup of coffee

pen & paper resting
on the window sill

darkness spreading
from behind some trees
outside the window

the trees are aquamarine

what kind of trees they are
is unimportant

what's important
is the way it's already
begun

how every night
behind his eyes
a few less stars
come out

Sailor on a Greyhound

Riding home from boot camp I’ve got ten days leave
before Indianapolis and journalism school
I'm on my way from Great Lakes Illinois
to northern Wisconsin’s gravel roads and woods
sitting with this girl who started out in Florida
the sunlight wants to live in her red hair
she says she’s been riding so long
she can’t feel her ass anymore
I tell her it’s still there and we both laugh
trying to finish a 6-pack before it gets warm

I used to ride the bus a lot when I was in the Navy
I’d have a cigarette in every town we stopped at
talking to the driver and the other smokers
I used to love watching the Midwest go by
I’d read and sleep and daydream
sometimes think about my life
while I was in between places

twenty years later
the windows are tinted too dark
and you can’t open them
you can forget about having
a drink in the back of the bus
or a quick smoke in the john
I mourn a bit though I quit smoking years ago
and drinking quit me more than I quit drinking
riding from Wisconsin to New York to visit friends
I think about that sailor who survived himself
night falls and he’s beside me
like a faint reflection in the window
riding on the waves of corn
that chase the moon that coin of dreams