I CAN’T COME CLEAN
another rainstorm, another night
the train rushes past cornfields,
a ruined city, the red wink
of a soft drink machine, a mile
away, in a dead parking lot
hand and forehead pressed
bone white against club car window,
ginger ale and crackers to calm
my nerves, though I’m not even
suspect in the Terre Haute carnage
three hours by rail behind me
I am so old, I have outlived Bundy
and Gacy and the BTK Strangler,
so old a stiff drink cannot help,
a quick confession cannot hurt,
hand and forehead smashed bone
white against wet glass, left eye
seeing vacant streets, right eye
seeing right eye and a man never
in his right mind, hand falls away,
making a sound I heard Janet Leigh
make in that shower in that movie
in my youth
