On The Circuit
it was up in San Francisco
after my poetry reading.
it had been a nice crowd
I had gotten my money
I had this place upstairs
there was some drinking
and this guy started beating up on a fag
I tried to stop him
and the guy broke a window
deliberately.
I told them all to
get out
and she started hollering down to the guy
who had beat on the fag
and he kept calling her name back up
and then I remembered she had vanished for an hour
before the reading.
she did those things.
maybe not bad things
but consistently careless things
and I told her we were through
and to get out
and I went to bed
then hours later she walked in
and I said, what the hell are you doing here?
she was all wild, hair down in her face,
you’re too callous, I said, I don’t want you.
it was dark and she leaped at me:
I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you!
I was still too drunk to defend myself
and she had me down on the kitchen floor
and she clawed my face and
bit a hole in my arm.
then I went back to bed and listened to her heels
going down the hill.
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