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Nights You Lay in Bed the Drunks Below by Blas Falconer

November 27, 2023
Reading Time: 1 Minutes

calling in the dark, the loud music of a radio
fading in the distance as
you fell asleep. You never saw the hurricanes
of late summer hit shore, only the swell
before, the still surface after, storefronts
boarded with plywood and
corrugated metal, trash heaped and lit
on fire, black horns of smoke
dissipating in the early morning. How
young, how ignorant,
sucking clusters of Spanish limes
in the shade, spitting out seeds, ready to trust
anyone who stopped on the road, sparkling with
broken bottles tossed from car windows.
They made room, and you slid
into the cabin’s seat, the whole truck
trembling with the engine’s power, the end of the gear
humming in the driver’s palm. Your leg pressed
against his, so when he punched
the clutch and hit the gas, his thigh’s
coarse hair brushed yours, and you
lunged forward, sugarcane fields
stretching out, sweet and green, on either side.

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Falconer, Blas
Blas Falconer is the author of three poetry collections, including Forgive the Body This Failure, and a coeditor of two essay collections, The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity and Mentor and Muse: Essays from Poets to Poets. His poems have been featured by Poetry, Harvard Review, and The New York Times, and his awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and Poets and Writers. He is Editor-in-Chief of Poetry International Online and teaches in the MFA program at San Diego State University.

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