Matinees

My father abandoned me.

Left me for hours
with the Saturday morning weirdoes
on Pike Street to watch gorilla
movies one after another
while the poker star
went upstairs following smoke
or downstairs or across the street.
God knows where he went
to play his cards.

When he finally returned
I'd be on a swivel-chair
next to the popcorn machine

where a pal from his war
made sure I was discreetly
sequestered, cool and dry
and bleary-eyed.

When I got home, the smoke
from my cigarette-laced clothes
still reeked.And worse,
the gorillas kept on dying.

- From Night Fires,2009