Loki-doed

Self-proclaimed hipster
trickster of the heart,
you sauntered Elgin and Bank 
alley short, cut to parking lot
to downstairs upstairs clubs,

breached doorways, heart fluttered,
soul lit, sole on gummy metallic stairs
past stickered walls, toward beat 
bass dance floor groan, 
scrutinized from over cigarette, rim of glass.

Your mid twenties, in chasms of night,
you stripped back, Kerouaced 
backpacked laid back
with bodies, such rich multiplicity,
index finger to Adam’s apple,
palmed line along nylon-covered thigh
his stubble, grate against your neck,
her breath, hot hush to earlobe.

Inside as many as you were
removed from strangers’ beds,
messed sheets, cold hardwood floor under heel
birds abitch about late April outside the window.

You carried promises as poems,
a coat-check twink’s number scribbled on 
paper he slipped in your pocket past last call,
inked ballpoint missives on debit slips,
dispatches to your later self.

Kept there, the number, not the man,
in case you needed or wanted,
pin-wheeling past the dawn.

At times, you longed for any 
to steer you through
darkly steeped beat of 3 a.m.
in and then out so deeply freely
losing self through duality.

Cocksure, certainly, although unsure
enough, elbowing atop bar top too familiar,
leaning in, leaning in toward hope, 
leaning on that break of light
just past the dark you saw.

© James K. Moran