devil down the sidewalk strip
moonlight black-out wandering
Devonshire Street calls
from a broken payphone
with the midnight mass waiting
for the door to close,
and everything goes hush
the ringing stops and that black
dead phone stares unabridged
through the drapes of diamond rain
silence like a broken filament
and then,
the drums down Devonshire open
wide their thundering road beat,
their sermon of murder and homonymy,
their flag waving and flagellants,
their yellow-striped god miracle of
yearning animal fire and nickel-stained
dynamite, shocking all our dreams
into a euphoric blaze of organ smoke,
stubbing out only when that one
light clicks on, that lone
street-corner lamp
a filament reborn
down the sidewalk strip
the trembling hum of a flame in the night
holding steady down Devonshire Street
midnight mass will now let out,
and to where will they find themselves next?
soon, perhaps, it will be
too late to guess or hope or even see
