The Devil In You

Last night you saw the devil in a top hat walking with a cane, or maybe sitting on a park bench, wincing whenever the wind blew. Last night the devil was in the details. Two more sad eyed nobodies no more spent than spun. Ham strung hallucinations, two birds came running to your window to find you gone, still sitting there sanitizing the past. No matter the size of the parasol over head you’re ground underfoot. These boots walked and found that hell was a form of personal innuendo when no one was laughing. You choke back a flower wanting to give birth to everything too scared to be born. It’s the manner in which temptation raises doubt how the best things won seem lost and the busses never run on time. Standing out—tearing in, silly thing to want the rain on a sunny day when you can’t stand illumination. Everything in its right place is a wrong aesthetic. Sometimes the medicine is to cut too deeply. Sometimes the devil is a little girl in a red dress with a blue face. Sometimes you can’t have been more than six or seven but when you want to be held you’re always the age you were right then. Pausing that day you thought the wind might wait for your leaves to fall by themselves. A chance reflection, the one you want to be, the one that wants to be you, the one isn’t the same as the one before. Don’t make too much trouble keeping out the stuff coming in. Dorothy Parker’s overwell wrought loves lay bare the door to hell. Last night’s last stand was lost in transliteration. There’s the metaphor you left unedited, the one where you’re at the center of it all. Then there’s last rights, the ones you take before the first kiss. Let’s pretend every last night was the devil in you.