I. 

melting soles stumble over city sidewalks, 

crush cigarette butts exhaling languid breaths, 

their doused fireflies flitting to dark refuge 

under glass-tiled towers burning bright, 

ginza and heels meshing in desolate charm 

to the pulse of hollow convenience store chimes. 

 

II. 

her tight tweed pencil skirt threatens liberty from the day’s unremitting demands, her pallid high-walled cubicle offhandedly coined a second home. now, she wears it out of plain old habit in the office and out. even as she staggers to the underground izakaya, this stupidly ugly skirt collars her. her legs tremble in night’s crispness; she takes neat, standard strides as though day had never left. they are seamless, liquid. she wonders if it will ever end, this endless march. rolling shutters. pristine archways. steam-brimmed windows. she briefly imagines her name glaring at each passerby upon mottled neon signs, the flat syllables charred remains of her deadbeat parents. the thought jolts her into laughter that crackles in noiseless alleys. 

 

she clicks past a heap–no, a carcass, a person, almost. laughter wanes. he is one with the crinkled suit enshrouding his body, twisted in effortless discomfort as a strangled ballerina would rise to entertain for one last coda, thin crimson streaks lurid around and around his jagged neck. to his left, stubbed out cigarettes strewn over peeling loafers mingle with shards of broken bottles reeking of cheap booze. to his right, a standard pitch-black briefcase lays limp just at his fingertips. she doesn’t stop to study his face. like all the masses of salarymen roaming after hours, he is an ashy blur. 

 

 

III. 

ached bones, numb, in eternal limbo 

swept over sidewalks, wake to 

warming dawn, witness to demise, resurrection; 

weary inebriation stills the drifting city 

to a cadaver ensconced in its public casket, 

the night’s gloom embossed on each telling face. 

 

IV. 4:00 A.M. 

this sweet taste 

this sweet state 

lingers 

hot on my tongue 

soon, maybe never 

i will see beyond white ties 

and blue suits 

and hell-hot days 

home the cutting concrete

i grow to embrace

earth’s dark comfort;

this sleepless dream

i savor

in slow resignation.