If ever more ravened, junked, numb-sconced
I could not recall it, sopping in aftermath
dusk's blossom bock, ink-musk ale
at rusted window screen, the annual carnival
a neon embolism blurring the horizon's black seam
that from the brine of my dispirits
struck me as the portajohn & ticket-littered
portal of hypocrisy and the soul's mojo shutting down.
Then you, scrabble in the bamboo,
fluent rapacious pelt, burnt, elegant-booted streak
flecking the despond no longer just mine
with a shiver estival that - even as language cages
it now, a loping scriptural and starving -
every word of it I winged to you then a barbarous traveling.