Street Legal

Something swims out of the diluted plasma
of the western sky, (pink
is the new blue), the answer to the question “Why not?”
on the tip of my tongue, 96 Tears,
THE LONG GOODBYE, a skatewheel, a
pelican, the silhouette of a smile
                              in the backseat of a murdered-out Chevy Malibu
& the rusty nail that makes my heart jump when you
slide into a barefoot tango that carries you smack into the vanishing point
& beyond
                        where you sleep standing on your head, counting the
              money you don’t have
                                      w/a picture of what drowning really looks like
tattooed on your instep