we swallow the nights
with stiff drinks
and we sop it up with bread.
we swallow the nights
with the radio and rain.
we swallow the nights
singing old songs
in thick voices.
we swallow the nights
laughing at the genius
of the dead.
we swallow the nights
with bliss
with a sprinkle of garlic
with a jigger of salt
and another ice cube.
we swallow the nights
that the phone rings.
we swallow the nights
and don't answer the door.
we swallow the nights
of sanity and madness
and silence.
we swallow the nights
on loud streets
on loud blocks
in cities that have gone to
hell and won't come back.
we swallow the nights
ravenously.
nights make good meals.
we swallow the nights whole.
but they never quell our hunger
or abate the fear
of being eaten alive
by all the rest
the very next day.
we swallow the nights
but are never truly free.
we swallow the nights
John Grochalski is a writer whose column, 'The Lost Yinzer,' appears quarterly in The New Yinzer (www.newyinzer.com). His upcoming book of poems The Noose Doesn't Get Any Looser After You Punch Out is coming out via Six Gallery Press in 2008.