Revisionist Poetry – Ghost Moon, v.3 – Grime & Grotesque

The night splits open like a mouth with broken teeth,
a sound that tastes of rust and stale whiskey.
Somebody spits a laugh down the gutter —
it bounces off wet brick and comes back hungry.

I lift my chin. The moon hangs there, swollen,
a jaundiced coin stuck to the ribs of bare trees,
one watery eye watching for confidences.
Moths tack themselves to its face like cheap bandages.

Branches scrape like fingernails on a coffin lid,
wind drags its sleeves through alleys of onion and ash.
Leaves skitter — dead tongues on the pavement —
and rats with pocket watches argue about the time.

This light ain’t kind; it’s got a smell: old perfume, gasoline, the sour of lost dinners.
It presses through the collar of my coat, scoffs at my breath.
I cough up a splice of shadow and tuck it in my pocket.
The city folds the noise into its palms and plays solitaire with bones.

There’s a woman on a balcony — lipstick smeared like a crime scene —
she keys a match and the flame flinches at the moon, ashamed.
Somewhere, a church bell hiccups; a dog swallows a scream.
Every sound is wearing a coat two sizes too big.

Come closer — the night offers you a stool and a knife.
It will straighten your spine, then cut you loose with a wink.
Fear here tastes metallic; beauty tastes like a bruise.
You keep licking it anyway because it’s warm and it keeps you alive.

So I stand under that busted neon planet, coughing chrome,
and the moon leans down like a drunk trying to whisper a secret.
It smells of everything you hid under the bed and of the coin you never found.
It watches. I watch back. We both spit and call it even.