William AltonFIVE POEMSThe Narrow GirlListen to Audio Version read by Jill Khoury.Hunger shapes her a certain way. She is all bone and tendon, wearing narrow shadows in her face. When she smiles, yellow teeth gnaw her lips open. She doesn't smile often. She sits in the bar drinking scotch, listening to country music. She thinks of dancing but no one dances alone in a place like this. Sadness is her only friend. When the bar closes, she opens her eyes and walks home, a short walk made long with misbehaving feet. She falls once. There is blood now, on the heel of her hand. She sleeps in the shower until the heat runs out. She sleeps on her belly, her spine a line of knots. In the morning, she's sick. She drinks a beer and pukes. She drinks another and lights a cigarette. She stares at herself in the mirror. She is unrecognizable. * * * The NoteIn a weather stained house filled with night, a man plans his death. He writes a note, crumples it into a ball and writes another. The words must be perfect. People need to understand, but they won't. They never do. It's the nature of pain to be private. Pain is a secret that loses meaning when talked about. Pain is the word said so many times it stops making sense. The man takes his note and leaves it on the table in the dining room. He leaves his note and takes his pills, ten in a fistful, ten fistfuls laid out on the table. He showers in hot water and begins to feel the pills pulling him down. He lies in his bed and waits, naked and a little cold. He pulls the blankets to his chin and drifts away. In the morning his son will find him, lying there naked and stiff. His son will always remember his father's blue skin, his rigid face. He'll read the note and wonder why his father could never be this eloquent when he was alive. * * * The Old Man In His RoomAn old man sits in a room full of dust and light. He smokes a cigarette and drinks bourbon from a mason jar. His hands are swollen and cracked, stained with the grit and grease of living alone for too long. He sings songs no one remembers. He leans out the window in the moonlight and whistles at the girls walking on the street. His voice is broken and raw. I listen to him walking on the creaking floors, his feet shuffling, the water running for his daily bath. The old man comes down the stairs one last time, bleeding. He knocks on my door. Will you watch me die? he asks. I stare at him until he fades away, a ghost torn apart on the wind. * * * The Plain GirlYou are unremarkable as darkness, simple as a blackout. I can not remember the way you danced at the party /but found myself in bed with you in the morning anyway. Your eyes frown when you smile. Your face forgets to be forgettable. * * * The Pop Can ManYou died right on the water. In with the cheatgrass and foxtail the quillwort and sedge, out on the edge of town, your cans in the plastic bag, ready to go (7 bucks maybe). Heart failure. Stroke. Maybe your liver just plain quit, you were pretty yellow. You carried your life in your pockets with your cigarettes and a thin bottle of wine: pictures — ruined with time, a driver's license — from Michigan (you were 62),a condom, some porn, a buck thirty-nine, in change. That night, on my patio, I smoked your cigarettes, listened to my boys counting your cans in the garage, wondered how long it took you to fetch up that way, the rain pooling in the shallows of your shoulders, melting you into the wetlands: how many days did your skin carry before it gave out? What rowdy thoughts kept you company while you waited for them to run off.
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