Strolling down the Strip
in the flashing pool of lights,
among giant screens with the
latest greatest show,
and taking in the flow and
intersections of people bizarre,
of tourists amazed and locals bemused
by what all the fuss is about,
and dodging the combinations
and permutations drawn from
everywhere in the world.
A woman approaches and
invites me to a strip show,
sidling up with allure and
describing its fleshly pleasures in
language concocted for her work
on the Strip in the noise and
the glitter and the smell
of heavy smoke; but with a smile
I decline and she, Hispanic,
says that it’s okay,,
even if it’s not okay at all,
for she must survive this place
of arid misplaced dreams.
Walking up and down this night’s parade,
the Strip seems short but really is far,
as I move in and out of casinos
that look all the same, with their
swirling cigarette smoke curling in the lights,
and sounds of success and failure indistinct,
and chips piled up at tables,
and the smell of fast food joints
drifting through the endless night,
with girls dancing in spaces pattered
for disorientation so you have no reason
to leave this timeless place at all.
Everything and nothing here exists,
blossoming in the desert like a
rose without its scent, like a river
with a dry bed waiting for
the flow of what can never come.
15/4/2019