Nights You Lay in Bed the Drunks Below by Blas Falconer

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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.

Free Verse

The Weekly

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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Nights You Lay in Bed the Drunks Below by Blas Falconer

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