Sunday

I woke up face first on the floor.
The smell of the shaggy green carpet reminded me
of a Star Wars bedspread I had as a child;
dull like stale Saturdays, waking up to watch Superfriends.
But the day was Sunday, somehow Sunday.
This I knew from the church bells ringing and echoing
through the open window, where
the wind blew gold curtains, flapping and snapping.
"Somehow Sunday," I said it aloud and hoped
hearing my voice would somehow remind me.
I rose and saw the bright yellow glare
of the school bus unloading sleepy,
Sunday school children across the street;
then I remembered…the bright yellow neon,
flickering in fantastic fits, "Cocktails",
outside the window, just above her smiling face.
Candy colors flashed in intermittent streams
and strobe lights blinked to the thumping beats at our backs.
Forgetting introductions and in-betweens I ordered
"Two whiskeys, doubles, straight up, and make sure
it's Chivas Regal, none of that cheap shit."
She seemed to like that selection and she smiled again--
and the Red from the ‘Bar’ sign fell on her face
and brought out the green in her eyes, squinting.
We talked, and she made me laugh at her story
about her aunt who, "Won over thirty
thousand dollars on the Wheel of Fortune
but on the way home crashed into,"
slurring words and spit were all I could offer her
as she became sad at my laughing--
but truly it seemed funny at the time.
Hours later we found our way out
into the icy wind, our breath in brisk puffs,
laughing because we knew you couldn't make smoke rings
with frost--and her car keys were
locked in her car. We had to walk, hanging
on to each other, down that long, midnight lonely road
"What about you, where's your car," she finally asked
a mile down, and I actually pondered the question
before realizing my friends had left me there hours ago.
We stumbled, "My house is just over here," she said
for what seemed like miles, before we found her door,
and the house smelled just like her, but the carpet…