Day One, Aces and Twos

First day of a relapse.

  

Day One   (Aces and Twos)

 

Sitting in cold back chair,

two in the morning,

awake from a drunk dream.

I walk to the door,

Opening—night air slapping

memories and regrets—

forty going on fifteen.

 

Standing in the doorway

of an old motel room

watching the oilmen play poker.

Dead winter in Escalante, Utah,

snow frozen on the ground,

its the smell I can’t let go of.

Seven days on, seven days off

on the tail end of six

days off—the ragged edges of the room—

sweat, whiskey, old work boots,

cigarette smoke burns fresh thirty years ago,

The scnapps burns my tongue going down—

Mick Jagger sings Honky Tonk Woman

somewhere in the bathroom,

trembling excitement of

watching money on a an old card table

becoming harder to let go of.

A Mexican roughneck named John

is slumped in his chair,

losing the last of a paycheck,

and the better part of his sanity,

smoke is swirling around his face

As the toolpusher calls the bet,

“Chinga su madre, mutha f***a’!” bites the stale air as

John throws his cards across the table,

He’s standing— weaving on kerosene breathe—

“Let it go,” says One Eyed Larry

propped up from the unmade bed,

“You got a whiskey head and

you don’t got the cards, man, let it go,

come on, See? Let it go.”

John the Mex looks at the toolpusher,

his red eyes lick the room with whiskey fire,

the toolpusher has his hands

wrapped around the table,

ready to bring it over

if the Mex wants to make trouble.

I lean a little harder against the door frame,

my heart thumps in my young lean body,

I am living outside my images,

frozen in this frame,

ready for all of hell to break loose

in this little room

so far away from American dreams—

John grunts something more in Spanish,

staggers off his chair and out into the

winter morning.

I smell his six day jag as he passes me,

watch him crunch through the snow—

his grief lost on the pile of fives on the table,

or maybes some other bitter loss,

or maybe a young girl he left

in Farmington New Mexico.

The tool pusher takes a swig

of the whiskey on the table—

cards in disarray except for his,

neatly fanned in front of him

two aces and a pair of twos…

It looks like a winner.

 

I close the door,

return to my chair—

the loss of winter spreads across the room—

the smell of  oil,

smoke filled honky tonks and pain.

All that I am there in the darkness—

the old coffee pot bubbles silent images

of youth and wasted screams—

I think one last time of John,

Listen to the crunching snow of regret,

I want to drink it all,

I want to smell it all,

I want to cry tears for ancient heartaches—

 

sleep will come soon.

sleep will come soon.