Waiting on the Leonids 
By Phillip Block

Half-drunk
on a cheap bottle of wine,
aching
for a cigarette,
waiting and wanting.  

Waiting for
my wife to fall
into a death-slumber,
where even the
end of the world
crashing to the paint-peeling
wooden planks
of our bedroom floor,
like shattering
Coca-Cola glasses
against stone
could not stir her.  

Waiting for the moment
when I can
make my mouse way
down the stairs,
through the two o’clock
AM quiet house;
opening doors
quietly, careful
avoiding
squealing hinges;
hinges, silence incarnate
during the day,
banshees wailing
at night.  

Opening doors,
gasping
as night-cold air
slowly entwines
icy-phantom fingers
round hairs on my arms,
chest, and legs;
pulling slowly till
roots and follicles
are removed— 
deflating the goose-pimples
riding the orbit of this skin.  

Bare footed
half-drunk
with smoke exiting
mouth and lungs;
swirling, incantations
melt as they rise
to the moon,
to the nameless stars. 

The cigarette unlit,
trying to name stars;
constellations revolve
around my confusion-filled head.
Remembering,
somewhat vaguely,
tonight is the height
of the Leonids. 

I should be watching
to the East, or is it West,
for showers of heat
burnishing
the dead-morning sky;
the violet-black velvet
of night edging to morning,
the sky a bruise
that only occurs
during the last
weak-fingered reaches
of Autumn;
waiting for a voice to
speak of the cold to come,
the receding of the Leonids,
and the slow growth
of December.