a family

they loved the finer things in life,
like cold beers and wrestlemania on sunday nights as
they watched the wrestlers go on stage
like glistening German sausages.

the father drank too much and he beat
the dog, his wife, and
sometimes,
the mother-in-law too

you'd hear the door slam shut and the mother
running out,
"I'm GONNA CALL THE GOD DAMN COPS
YOU DIRTY SON OF A BITCH"

and then the Cops would come and
take the report:

"Yes Ma'm, but please just go back inside
and take care of your husband now,
we've got better things to do"

other days you'd hear the father
working on the boxcar,
it was painted Blue with a white #6

but most of the time he was gone,
thankfully for the dog
thankfully for them

he was a trucker,
been sucked-off by over a hundred whores, he said.
fell in love with a hooker named Moonlight
who got him shot in the dark by a broad
in Blue Springs, Missouri.

the wife was built like a 20 brick-shit houses,
varicose legs shining in the limelight of her balcony
as she smoked cigarettes
(while he was working on #101 and so forth)..

but as they kept drinking,
the boys in blue kept coming
and then someone finally took the dog,
and then the trucker in handcuffs and then the wife.

the mother-in-law was there too,
arm's crossed looking quite justified..

all those late nights with Brahms,
all those nights with explosive arguing fit
quite well into my symphony,
while I was alone and staring at the decaying geraniums of hell,
while the women loved other's when I so
desperately
needed their hair flowing into mine,
they gave me chance, a fire to roast, a reason to exist
when even the walls seemed dull.

but as they're gone now, probably apart,
I remember them
and those white boys in tights as I watched
their TV through their window,
smoking a cigarette and feeling quite
uninteresting.