Safe Passage

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They were friends at that point
shoot the shit confidantes
hoisting ale shots at McSorley’s
as rain splattered the windows
like Pollack paint 
and sawdust added extra pulp to their fiction
when she asked him 
kind of casual, kind of not
why ghosts keep showing up
in his poetry
like the milky incandescence of
long dead relatives,
evaporated friends,
and femme fatales
who lowered the standards of his heart to this
very moment
He gave it a thought
a seconds long inventory at best
and answered:
I don’t know, what do you think?
She looked at him
like she just solved a whodunnit
and said
I think it’s about hope
which stole his breath
like a Times Square pickpocket
and moved him to tears like 
the first time he heard
Piaf sing “Non, je ne regrette rien.”
which guaranteed him safe passage
right there in a saloon
packed with diehards  and tourists
to enter his writing place
where he could confer directly
with the spirits themselves
who told him that
job one is
to pack away
all the fine silk memories
into a well-traveled steamer trunk
like a backstage dresser
in a Fred Astaire movie
armed with
smelling salts. 
or a flask of bath tub gin
depending on what the emergency is.
To which he responded
“I’ll have a little of both,”
And then he ordered another round
which gave him the courage
to reach out
and hold her hand.


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