Tonight the moon is silent like
a broken espresso machine
and on the porch of a crumbling
Victorian, a bunch of teens want
to start a White Stripes cover band.
“Amy’s gotta be in it, cause she plays
the drums,” one says. And then there’s
silence. I guess none of them play guitar
and nobody feels like singing.
Down the street, a bunch of former starcatchers
are climbing trees on Symphony Circle,
but it’s cloudy out and my ex-girlfriend’s there too,
on her hands and knees inspecting the cold ground.
I crouch down beside her and she tells me the ants
are using really tiny blowtorches to melt the snow.
She’s looking at wet coffee grounds and cigarette
butts with a little red life left. Sometimes things
feel safer in the dark, but not anymore
and as I walk away from it all, there’s this Hasidic
party bus parked in front of the abandoned
liquor store and men with long beards are smoking
cigars and handing out tiny Torahs.
I take one.
Justin Karcher is a poet and playwright born and raised in Buffalo, New York. He is the author of numerous books of poetry. He is also the editor of Ghost City Review and co-editor of the anthology My Next Heart: New Buffalo Poetry (BlazeVOX [books], 2017). He tweets @Justin_Karcher
a broken espresso machine
and on the porch of a crumbling
Victorian, a bunch of teens want
to start a White Stripes cover band.
“Amy’s gotta be in it, cause she plays
the drums,” one says. And then there’s
silence. I guess none of them play guitar
and nobody feels like singing.
Down the street, a bunch of former starcatchers
are climbing trees on Symphony Circle,
but it’s cloudy out and my ex-girlfriend’s there too,
on her hands and knees inspecting the cold ground.
I crouch down beside her and she tells me the ants
are using really tiny blowtorches to melt the snow.
She’s looking at wet coffee grounds and cigarette
butts with a little red life left. Sometimes things
feel safer in the dark, but not anymore
and as I walk away from it all, there’s this Hasidic
party bus parked in front of the abandoned
liquor store and men with long beards are smoking
cigars and handing out tiny Torahs.
I take one.
Justin Karcher is a poet and playwright born and raised in Buffalo, New York. He is the author of numerous books of poetry. He is also the editor of Ghost City Review and co-editor of the anthology My Next Heart: New Buffalo Poetry (BlazeVOX [books], 2017). He tweets @Justin_Karcher
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