Nighthawks, after Hopper

The world, of course, is dead.                 It was my father's as this could be Nickel Charlie's, the all-night restaurant next to Loew's Poli in New Haven where he'd repair after the graveyard shift on the Journal-Courier.                 A linotype operator his fingers swam beside a window propped up by Four Roses against a smothering night. Wasn't, though, this lead and whiskey universe he died from since he retired punching the copy out of tape under                 a livid, technical flourescence - which is of my world of course. And I must                 sit among these waiting nighthawks to become the one who shows a slice of face and who observes                 the hard-edged guy, nondescript in the dark suit of his time with gray fe-                 dora and black band. I wear it too, sniffing the coffee, hearing the chromium hiss                 of the polished urns, watching the redhead                 check her nails. Diner of the Heart. A blondish counterman thrusts down his arms                 like old women washing clothes in the rivers which erode exhausted cities.                 The redhead played 367 for a year and it came out the day she stopped. I say nothing, having myself run out of numbers, bad luck entombed in the wool of my suit. But then I mumble past                 the obligation of our unconcern that I'll play it, three, six, seven staring out at nothing from the bright space                 of terror. She says play a quarter for me.