Private Investigation
It’s late at night or early in the morning
the way it always is with these stories,
on the way to the crummy apartment
the bar, the all-night diner, where you
will find a beauty in red, nervous, with a wad of cash
and a problem. You can fix it, you lie,
take the dough and follow her to the penthouse.
She pours expensive liquor into an expensive tumbler,
shakes down her platinum curls and you know you are
in trouble and you know it’s the kind of trouble
you like. This is your movie. You’re making it
all up. You’re showing the gun, making it
go off before the last page; your love a red herring,
we figure it out, at the end.
