Torch-Bearing

In this new city of red-brick houses
your memory might be a ghost
who shrieks at odd hours of the night,
or a cage I rattle when I'm alone,
if it weren't already the sword I use
to parry the blows of real life.

I'm setting up camp
in the red boxcar of jealousy
where I rot with the wood for weeks
before wrapping myself in velvet night
to gaze at milk-drop stars
who wink behind a million-mile blanket,
dripping their glow onto the weed-ridden, rust-covered rails.

And now I want to reach out
and touch everything that's true,
bringing it into myself
sudden and electric
purgative and dizzying
like shooting penny vodka with the boys,
all of us fresh, the restorative power of communion
coursing through us like lighter fluid
for the torches we are sure we'll become.