After Jimi Hendrix
For Joe
I met him when my lungs were clean, typically
after dusk, escaping unsupervised into our own night
club, where a dark bird beckoned through a haze, electric
in its longing, leading the way to my future amplified
by smoky ruin. I’d like to say I don’t do things only when sad
chimes tell me so, but there was something irresistible
about riding in that old pickup on the way to the mountain
with a sweet friend who taught me how to roll and drink
black coffee, then disappeared. Out of the blue. The brake lights
didn’t work, so there was no indication of slowing down;
and the window was jammed half-mast, so even in the winter
we sucked down stimulants under a flat sky, in a flurry
that filled the cab with snow: two boys assuming adulthood
had arrived early, practicing a new language, broken, bending
around a curve that would certainly take us somewhere. Icy
roads were the least of our concern. At that time in our lives
no time was a bad time for being unwise. Now, ill-advised,
I’ve stayed up all night again. It’s five o’clock in the morning,
and I hear the familiar call of a bird in the night—Hey Joe.
The rainless roll of high thunder persuades me to return
to old habits. It’s been a decade since we spoke, and here I am
waiting, tasting for invisible notes of campfire and quinine.