Eating the Night

On Saturday night the shops
close around dark
But their after-hour neon signs
give enough glow
through handsmeared glass
to tint our skin and teeth and clothes.

We are laughing
at ourselves and, alternately,
looking very somber,
for when there is scotch
to be had (and there often is
when people pool their money)
we become prophesizing philosophers,
claiming and renouncing kingship
and theories and the fate of the universe.

It is sometimes suggested,
by one member
of the group or another, that we ought
to write our ideas down,
but of course we never do.
Because if you write something down you
claim ownership of it, you
have inherent responsibility
over it. We will never
act on these ramblings. We will
sleep until noon,
get doughnuts or blueberry pancakes, and then
do the homework we’ve put off.

Monday we’ll go to class and
let, with only minor internal rebellion, people
tell us how to think,
and how is not so very different from what,
and what is not so very different from who,
and before we know it we will
be cogs in the great machine
we once drunkenly denounced.

Some of us
will remember our old ideals
with nostalgia or remorse, and
some of us
will remember them
with astonishment or laughter, and
some of us
might not remember them at all.

But Saturday nights, right now,
at this time in our lives, we’ll
be sitting on a curb
outside a closed thrift store,
eating the night away
with our pungent breath.