Everything Happens to Me

His voice warps a little, old hi-fi disc

wobbling on its tentpole axis;

the fact he no longer has teeth

broadcasting in every held syllable:

Billie’s heartbreak boiled down

to shit luck and a whole carton of cigs

pressed through a grinder

to make a kind of soup out of smoke.

The song already resides in

the territory of sadsack and o

woe is me, but this late hour

version of Chet drenches the rag

in dishwater and squeezes it out

on the gummed floor of melody.

You can almost hear him spitting

his teeth out, beat up

from drug deal gone wrong. That

you know how he used to sing

and how he used to look

in all the old photos, pretty boy

skylark, only enhances the smirk

behind his straight face: I’m just a fool

who never looks before he jumps.

The voice flutters the song to a close

then drops out the window.

You peer down the alley

but there’s nothing there

but the sludge line of a garbage truck.