Dusk. As if someone had placed a paper bag
over the sinking sun’s head. Deserted streets.

On the corner, a small diner with one man
inside, sitting in a both, a glass of ice water
near his right hand.

Snow begins to fall. The man in the diner
stares out the window, his face, a bulb
without a lampshade.

Down the street, a barrel full of fire.
Three figures huddled around it.
No one speaks.

The man in the diner puts a dollar bill
on the table and leaves. The empty diner
shines like someone about to go to sleep.

The houses are all dark. One of them
is mine.

close to no
flat and fatherless
there is

Keith Polette