Drinking in a blues club at seven in the morning, 

then getting breakfast

I had been drinking like it (or I) was going out of style since ten 

in the morning the morning before, then I heard a yellow clock

humming behind the bar across the room, glowing like the yellow 

Moonbeam clock in my grandma’s kitchen across the state line. 

Snowing all night, so we didn’t know where the state line was 

anymore, and anyway it was just us now, sweetly and privately. 

A woman real close to me had her yellow pumps up on the table 

crossed at the ankles, some of her fingers interlaced with mine,

the rest of them loose into her loose red hair, she was smiling sleepy 

but her fingers were squeezing me awake. Still smelled of Chanel. 

And then, breakfast. Eggs rose like suns on the tables, pancakes 

piled up hot and smoky, syrup and butter lathered in, the warm woman 

near me kicked off her pumps, dipped her toes in the egg yolks 

and acrobatically fed me the drippings as I dangled bacon like grapes 

to her lips, then I dangled her the grapes (I owed her, I liked her!) 

and everyone ate, and ate, and kept on eating until they all passed out. 

This was all friendly, no one was going home for days, a warm shaft of sunlight 

came in, some of us in the room were cheating, with other lovers, blame

it on the snow, but everyone was alright, smiling at each other, and the smell 

of the kitchen lighting up was so homey, all of us so far away from everything.