There
Now it rains in New England
Like bored fingers on the harp of summer,
And out the dark window the city lights
Blink on and off through the leaves
Like lightning bugs.
The pale light of the telephone receiver
Is touching her cheek in the black room
As she talks and talks to her mother.
A southern girl talks across the wires
From this dark wet Maine mill town
(a lost town,
this is a losers' town)
To her mother's southern ear,
And she is laughing.
And I, I drink beer and stare,
Stare past the weeping glass,
The shimmering phantom skyline,
The tenebrous orange sky.
But the poems,
The poems are always there,
Damn them.