Tonight's Poet Corner: Hyde, One AM

Hyde, One AM
by Belinda Roddie

I'm sneaking sips from a mini
bottle of Jameson at the bus stop
with the best view of the bridge. Its
metal snout breathes in fog and breathes
out light and heat and bubbling stars.

I think the whiskey's gone
to my head, because I have the strange
belief that behind me, the streets
are being repaved with silver, and all
the divots in the sidewalks are being filled
with diamonds, like a ritzy operation
on a broken nasal cavity. And

all I want to do is curl up on a mattress
where the sun hits me just right, but
bird shit can't touch me, out where
the silhouette of a brass arrow buries
its nose deep into the drought-choked soil,
and the rattling of repainted cable cars
is the best free alarm clock I could ever ask
for, and deep in the stew of my memory, I
can see dinner for two at the wharf where
sea lions sing harsh lullabies, and smell
hot coffee and burnt sugar, and hear Irish reels

telling me run away run away run away
deep deep deep
into the green that will wash you clean
and never go back to sleep