She's kept him
all these years in her room:
just his head
stuck on a spike.
She turns before him
while she dresses,
powders his dusky face,
and sits him, for the instruction
of her lovers, by the bed.
Like breaking fingers
the bed creaks,
and she rasps his name
in a voice rich
as tearing silk.
You want to go home,
but none of the streets
look familiar, neither
the stucco houses
nor the brown lawns in front.
Do you live here,
or did you see this on TV?
You study the cracks
in the sidewalk like maps.
The mailman speaks,
and the garbagemen wave,
but that doesn’t mean anything,
and you can hardly ask them
your name. The evening sky
is bruised violet and yellow.
Any minute the street-
lights will bloom.
A little girl
on a tricycle stares at you
a long moment, then pedals
away, not looking back.
John Calvin Hughes has published poems, stories, and criticism in numerous magazines and journals. He is the author of The Novels and Short Stories of Frederick Barthelme, from the Edwin Mellen Press.