only no one knows when a mild wind blows then goes dead cold

only no one knows

when a mild wind blows then goes dead cold

mercury,

you slide up and down

your glass pole the way

expert legs, a knee

on each side, do, and if I were

the kind of eye to look

I’d see, maybe, the pinch

and grip, the way a lady

knows how to read a crowd

of randy men and still keep

her own how she seduces

each lap in the room

and they all even the barkeep

grope and roll while

that pole glows then froze

and becomes them becomes

the bum in the gutter

at the second table

or the mayor in the black

suit or any number of truck

drivers and cops all of them

eyes in the sky right up

to midnight and a ride

home and its red enough

in the small glass ball

a pool of you
liquid silver right?

Silver.  Some blue.  The Almighty

reading the room and men

going out in to or right up out

of flues and three am

open as slipped buckles

and buttons

and nothing going down

but cold.