Boulevard

Boulevard

Last night I held a handful
of blue pills, their bitter dust
a blanket on my tongue. When I swallowed
and set the glass down, it cracked in two
and water ran across the table
onto the floor, the way blood
bursts from the hurt body.
Across the alley the figure of my neighbor
stood watching at his window,
a "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" poster
on the wall behind him. We had never met,
though we had witnessed the other's
every gesture of sloth or sorrow. In bed
I waited for sleep to slam open
to the dream-figure of my father
Like a lid or heavy earth, blown up. Earlier that evening
I saw my father's face in a stranger's
As it hovered near me on the metro
His skin fit tight around the man's shoulders
Like a shroud, swathed the warm pillar
Of my father's body until he was lost to me.
I could no longer feel his laughter
Or the pulse on his neck, only myself
Shrinking to the size of a child
In my father's embrace, and even smaller.
I saw this over and over, clinging to the memory
Until my fingers curled and eyelids fused
And I was in the darkness, inside my dreams,
Blue pills forgotten.
I heard his laughter, felt his pulse as I
Pressed my forehead to his neck. I was his
child again and the metro passed the
Boulevard of Broken Dreams.