HOUSTON 1980

I needed

     a job pronto so

I drove in the petro-

chemical darkness, 
     past pawn shops and 
U-Tote-M’s and shrimp 

stands, drifted 

     into the shadows 
of downtown where 

fungal rats the size of 
     dogs danced among 
pick-ups on Texas Street,

entered the Alamo

       Diner, it was 5:30,

the waitress

sat me at the

     window where I could 
watch the rats 

and see myself

     flat on the glass,

the only gringo 

in the joint.

     Beside me a 
maid and her son, 

his eyes like

     a sleepy burro,

he ate a buttered

tortilla as she spooned 
     her juevos rancheros, 
I ordered eggs, stirred

   
sugar in my coffee, 
     turned to the Want-Ads, 
circled the ones with 

promise when I 
     found my calling,

a bookstore!  I 

lit a Winson and 
     laughed at the
man on the phone 

last night who

     said the streets aren’t 
paved in gold here

son, I loosened

     my tie and squinted 
through the smoke and 

said “Who says?” 
     The woman

and her son stared at me

as if I was nuts and

     perhaps I was 
but I knew something 

then that no one else 
     on Texas Street knew –

that I’d have a job

by noon easy, 
     this was America,

all it would take

was the quarters 
    in my hand

and the Alamo Diner 

pay phone, some mints

     and my white shirt 
and tie, I’d sell 

self-help psycho-

     babble, bodice rippers,

gossip rags, newspapers,

skin mags, Necco

    Wafers and cokes,
gum and cigarettes,

it was all such 
     an easy mark, 
a lark, that night we’d 

eat jambalaya 
     from a roadside stand,

return to The Thunderbird

motel and drink
     a six-pack of
Lone Star in the

stiff sheets, our lives 
     blessed like 
the streets paved with 

gold.