Fistfight

The night was
full of bottles

What I'd imagined
drowning must be like
only with more labels
Black
gold and gold
and gold and silver
promise coronation:
King of the Drink.
drowning
protected from tomorrow
by death tonight

The closing of my faculties
interrupted with a shock
by the sober speed of drunken punches

in the night
lit only by torches
the people writhed together
rising and falling
unable to understand their own movement

No one knew why
the drunken fistfight at 1:30,
while we watched
from the gas station

I wanted to agree when he said how he abhorred violence, but there was a dark beauty in it, a fear of the rarely experienced, a shadow of our end, and I thought how Arendt said that death was the most apolitical thing, separating from the world of human affairs, a signifier that all pursuits became nothing in the face of the mortal being.
    I thought about standing in Dresden when it finally fell silent, feeling the wind ripple a torn shirt, feeling the disbelief, the disbelief is all, the disbelief of what is most real, like when O'brien says: Boom, down, it wasn't like in the movies, man, he fell like a pile of bricks, no ass over tea kettle.
    Not a movie, sure, but still I was wide-eyed like a child, cheeks stuffed with popcorn
a little glimpse of hell for the man born and raised in heaven
    the poxed hunchback found asleep on the country club golf course by a boy in a sweater and khaki pants; and only a strange kinship told the boy it was real, that he would see it someday, that nobody dies in heaven, we all go to hell first.