LIGHT BILL

by Clive Matson

Crutching along the green
carpet on the balcony
at dusk
                 with the city
spread out below, skyline
and hills in spots
coming alight.

Who wouldn't bust
chops for another moment
in the glow?
                  Of a setting sun.

For a few years
Allen circled the globe
with rainbow-colored newspapers.

For ever
to his basement apartment
came improbable ways
of saving the world.

                                             Says
" Stranger things have happened"
than our dreams coming true.

Points to his hip
with index finger, "Tumor
the size of a chili dog."

In two months he aged
twenty years. The old guy
                                fumbles along
the cafe wall, feeling
for a door.
                         They moved it.

His old flame
marries him again.
Stretches alongside in bed,
cradling a lyre.

Where is that hole
with the brilliant light?
                                          Somewhere
through a forest of pain
behind the printed curtains,
in front of the garage door.

"Say a poem,"
she asks. Allen
pulls himself erect,
leans back and
                                 spreads his arms.
                                 Silence.
Images flow from the divide
into the beyond.

A split hour
later he puts words
into this world:
" I want to go home."

"You are home, Allen."
She plucks a slow harmonic.
" You are home."

© Clive Matson

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