Closing Time




In the dark city's gleaming freezers
of office buildings, shut computers cool in rows like ice cubes.
Women working late suddenly pass by empty doorways
and see their lit reflection haunting the black windows,
hovering over the pool of neon-stippled night
like a bat hunting its silver prey.
A woman lays the phone receiver in its cradle,
slick black baby, still with its umbilical cord.
A man is trying to reach her, but all they can use
to communicate are shrill bells and blinking lights,
a clown's mating ritual. Everyone goes down eventually.
On the ferries and trains, the professional men
go home to their square gardens and wives,
dreaming of a Sunday when an unfamiliar bird
will flicker like desire's white televised thighs
across the lawn in an afternoon haze golden as beer,
waiting for some ordinary sin to set them free.

(Originally published in Cider Press Review)



E-mail: JBReiter@aol.com


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