Helpless
Poem by Clint Spencer • Photo by Mitch Miller
 


All night the neighbor upstairs
Played his flute.
Leaning out his window,
 
He trebled to the canine streets
Then wandered to the courtyard,
His flute roaring:
 
Shirt off,
Flint flakes of moonlight
Glimmering on his bald head,
 
His bare back,
Dark and bristly,
Like his barrel chest.
 
The neighbor to my right declared
That two horns
Rose from the musician’s forehead—
 
Two horns,
Curved and graceful
Like his dancing thumbs.
 
All night his melodies soared
Above the salt tide of the city
Until the street lamps flickered off—
 
One man and his stopless flute.
And the neighbor across the pool
Swears by his mother that he saw
 
Two goat feet
Traipsing in the neon light,
But we know who was drunk
 
And who was dreaming.


Back   •   Home   •   Next