Vision

Rose's smile is bitter
black lipstick
frost.

Not that I know
those lips,
always twisting truth ...

We dance around lies
and fall far from truth
in strip clubs.

Cold as Rose's smile
all sin and zero
warmth.

Her dialogues are
puzzles of ennui
and violation.

I'm incapable
of translating after
drinking whiskey.

Yet she cannot
leave the word "lost"
alone.

Until she's cued
to go on stage --
the spotlight

dims on Rose
whose face remains
too opaque to read.

But at strip clubs
all the lights lie
except for the red.

As her undraped form
shows why the dark
misses no one.

To leave a vision
I can't touch or
believe

As Rose does gyrations
looking haunted
not smiling once.

While I drink
on a Monday afternoon
boredom like a shadow ...

That's chosen us
with enough room for
all of our ghosts

In this
desolate near
empty bar.