Infection

Fever shakes through his bones.
He is dying. He is dying
a slow death. The doctors call it an infection
from a tooth gone bad. He has no money
for doctors. The doctors treat him and send him home
but home is the Mission and the Mission is running
out of time. They will have to turn the bed over
to someone new. He can only stay
a month. Then he needs to move on.
Only he is too sick to look for work.
He is too sick to move on. His legs
will not carry him. He needs a place to stay.

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Spring Afternoon to Night

The days climbed slowly to equinox. Bright, endless, warm, pale
clouds, high, thin, wispy as brushstrokes. Rain and wind scoured comfort
to mud and puddles, streams running slowly into summer.
Lilacs, rhododendrons hung, dripping and limp, too bright, vibrant, to be nearly dead.
Then crisp again, frantic, stretching for the sun before graying into tiresome nights.

The city changed from day to night. The suits and briefcases faded
to messenger bags and jeans, nightclub clothes and people hauling
their shit around on their backs trying to get to the Mission before they closed.
I wasn’t there yet. Missions were for people in trouble. I wasn’t in trouble yet.
I could take a few days of this.

I slept in an alley. I was a body in an alley. No one bothered me. I was safe for a night.
I imagined thieves and brigands. Romance and savagery. I imagined learning to live
from asphalt and concrete. Maybe an underground brotherhood. It was silly,
but I was scared and people were turning to pillars of salt.

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Under Dirty Blankets

They play chess in the rain
outside Starbucks until the cops
chase them off. They break
molds with their pierced
faces and tattoos. They are angry
young men cussing at each other
over checks and checkmates.
They stop for a second to bum cigarettes
from people waiting for the train.
Come night, they find their flops and make love
to their girlfriends before sleeping
under dirty blankets.

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Bill Alton started writing in the Eighties while incarcerated in a psychiatric prison and has found he can’t stop. Since then his work has appeared in Gloom Cupboard, Amarillo Bay and Breadcrumb Scabs among others. He earned both his BA and MFA from Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon where he continues to live with his wife and sons. More of his poetry can be found at billalton.com.