Backlight

Drinking in an evening
while sipping down a year as a day's ending.
With sun setting, keep repeating
          old retreats.
The streets freezing and specters easing
     from exhaust pipes
speak of an emptying, of fatigue, of a face framed
          in memories
of arguments, apologies, in-jokes and glass nights'
          frost-embossed panes--
     of walks down roads well salted
     of adding salt to stir-fry curries to season

Which?
--Not Spring, just yet.
Who cares?
--Well, me!
I'm drinking in an evening
Sipping. Gazing out southwestward.
I trace with soft eyes a solid skyline.
See the Bighorns' darkened profile,
     backlit with bright fading
hinting, half-telling
          stories
          promises
       half       making
that they'll still be there, tomorrow.

I met those mountains long ago--
     I've known them my whole life,
     you've only seen them.
I met them long before you,
but they remind me of you
and that's not fair.

Sheets

I'll write and say same words I've said
     ten thousand times before
Until I don't believe
     that I believe them anymore
Because riding on this carousel
means spinning one's wheels
into moist ground
     thought I had some traction
     but it seems I thought too soon--

So I am off of the rails
Off the wagon. Off to nowhere.
'Cuz it's, "Onward, lads,
to one more night spent
covering ground's familiar footsteps
and sheeting snowy sidewalks
in the dollars we don't have."

And we'll lay 'em kinda thick
     press our prints in Presidents
pro bono comes advice
from the corners we can't heed,
but por argento comes the cure
we choose to kill our heads with

I'll pick a place, polish my boots
     get far as my front steps
where I'll sit until the summer rolls around
     and sweat rolls down in sheets

Short sheeted best hopes,
shortened thank-you notes
and lists of shitty quotes
lay around and resonate
on floors and facebooks,
tabletops
in summertime,
          when it rolls around

But, now, it's winter
and we're all 364 1/4 resolutions older
     --at 33 resolutions per minute,
     and 16 ounces at a time,
     we can almost cope.

Now, it's winter and the sheets are
          still too warm

Now, it's winter and we sheet the
          snowy sidewalks
in Presidential faces
in the dollars we don't have
and the cure we kill our heads with
keeps us safely insane
'Cuz in a world built by psychopaths,
the sane don't always last.
And, if I'm the last one out?

I'll sing a song and kill the lights before I go.