Muse on Market St.

Muse on Market St.

They pilgrim towards the holy land 
on Tuesday nights, four weary walkers, thin
and thirsty from the road without an end,

converging, if for a moment, 
to rest beside the dusty path 
and share a drink. The tall one asks 
about the Wanderlinger ale. They light
their thrift-store pipes, their cigarettes. 
They riff about the ways of women, 
about the trip one plans to take, and given
time, about the way the world slips like silt
between the knuckles of the hand
that tries to clinch it whole. 

In time, they reassure themselves, 
it surely must solidify 
from silt to stone, the night
of shadow-thick philosophies become 
a light as tangible as the one
that flickers through the smoke 
above their heads, and they, flickers
themselves of some undying flame, 
will with the rest become
the shimmers they have always been.

Till then, the weary Pickle Barrel waiter brings 
another round, the smoke
sits warm and heavy in their thirsty throats, 
and from the barroom speakers slides
an evening wail of electric guitar, loud 
and gritty, thin and faceless,  
distorted as the presence that they chase

uphill in the dark.

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