Too Late Always Comes Too Soon

The taller the tales the more
he ducks and dives:
not hiding out in the trailer
but in the keyhole shadows
beneath it, where tyres are
knee-deep in mud though
it hasn’t rained in months

and a man with only a bottle
for good company
will find every bad reason
to cool off from the summer heat,
the mosquito moon:
knowing without believing
that somewhere out there
a pick-up truck and a twelve gauge
have him loaded in their sights.

And knowing he has nowhere
to hide is as good a reason
as any to open the last bottle
his last pay check can afford,
climb inside the dirty heart
of a whiskey as warm as he was

when he took the boss man’s woman
into the dark under his Lexus
and showed her the mud on
its wheels was no cleaner
than the dirt beneath his trailer.

But darkness is dirt however
you look, and the only clean hole
is the bullet hole he knew
was coming before he chambered
the round and flicked off
the safety; lay down with an angel
in the devil’s backyard,
listening to the beating of her
wild black wings. Knowing
for the first and last nights
they were only beating for him.