sitting on a cardboard box

sitting on a cardboard box under a bridge in the city,

Dallas in the rain, reflected green, never seemed so pretty

grimy,

 and hard.

Street lights and brakes, blinkers and neon

blur in my vision,

as i am surrounded in the sounds of the city

muted by drizzle:

wet tires approaching and receding

like an urban tide, 
the sirens in the distance lifted

by the wind to drift under the bridge

and mix with the chatter of the old troll

whose party i've crashed.

LeRoy speaks to me slowly,
tells me tales of years past

glory days lived fast and half fabricated.

memories of playing music in juke joints that never existed

memories of women who vanished like mist in the sun,

slowly faded.

His calloused hands hang limp off his knees

except when he points a gritted finger at the city

or when he takes the wine from me.

He lifts it through the wiry brush of hair around his lips

and tilts his bald head back to drink

before passing the bottle back to me.

Sucking the air in between his few pomegranate seed teeth,

LeRoy, the troll, continues to speak.

"Shit, son," he turns his eyes to mine,

"i know you ain't believe half of my life.

"You think i'm liein'."

I laugh, put the bottle down
and pull out a sack of grass
and an orange pack of zig zags.

He smiles, unleashing enough reason for five DDM suicides.
We sit in silence as we finish the weed,

then i get up and give him the end of the pluck,

the last of my wine.

His grunt suffices for both thanks and goodbye

as i walk out from under the over pass

and out into under the sky.