Ten Torch Songs to the City

The drive down to the city

is ten torch songs long,

sitting shotgun singing

baby sister's backseat blues.

Mother's bare skin;

she's trouble steering toward

her connection, hoping for a discount;

in a tube top,

red satin hot pants,

pumping pedals in 5 inch

platform heels.

Windows rolled down

catching the last

of asphalt's noon-trapped heat,

evening smothered sticky black,

my filthy bare feet

hanging out to feel

smog blowing twilight's breeze.

Left turn, The Cellar Door's

parking lot,

where mother disappears

down stairs,

her world

where children

are forbidden.

She always says

she'll be right back,

but just in case,

she never is,

I crawl between seats

to sit with my sister.

The parking lot fills;

darkness,

strange voices in cars

come and go,

footsteps approach and pass away.

three distant lights

stand far apart

shining circles of bug swarmed

pools, sporadic white

in night's hidden hands

crouching in corners of humid gloom.

we roll up the windows,

sweating in safety.

Baby's five year old heart

hides in my pocket

and says, sing, sister, sing,

so, I sing for her

all the songs I ever knew

for loving away fear-

her damp head grows heavy

in my lap with sleep.

With no one to comfort,

I am left alone,

no one there to sing for me,

I watch until my mind

slumps against the glass

and I sleep.

Outside,

dropping her keys

slurring obscenities-

she's come back at last.

She slams against the car,

waking my sister and we

sit up and wait for her

to come inside.

Come inside,

I wanna go home, 

little birds with open beaks,

until her fury shrieks us silent.

Flooring the car in reverse

she flies into the roadway,

swerving lanes, laughing,

drunken spree speeding 

faster and faster,

through a red light

narrowly missing another car,

she careens, screeching

slamming brakes as we scream,

terrified in the backseat,

sobbing, begging her to stop.

Somehow we make it home.

She sleeps and sleeps.

When she awakes, she doesn't remember;

her blissful blank.

She looks at me and my sister.

Shrugging her shoulders, she lights