Confessional

My old pops was a railroad man,
got busted up_____1986.

He always won the fights I picked.

__________I ascend concrete stairs
_____from the top
__________I survey

gleaming toy city tricked
out______chrome and lights
as if shined with spit.

_______Somewhere an old
Pac Bell payphone stand
ripped free of receiver and box

stands ignored
_____by pedestrians.  From it once
I called home

____________collect
while wandering drunk and alone
one cold morning

__________in 1996:
pea soup-thick fog,
after a night of ouzo at the Mix

(then Uncle Bert's.)