Junkie John

                   "I sing the song because I love the man"

                                                           --- Neil Young


In July, he wears wool sweaters
to hide the potholes
of his arms' bad blood
staining the starched white 
linen of his dress shirt. 

He shoots meth 
between bells,
locked in the faculty bathroom. 

By three he's picking his cheeks,
itching to hide at home
the night that sleeps
eyes wide until morning. 

Broke
he combs the carpet
for a bump,

flush with twenties
he watches CNN for a week
without eating.

The wife, the cat, the car
move in the middle of the night
to Montana

before the salad mash
of his mind
collides with the cops

and they kill him 
with a .12 gauge
for thinking he's back in Iraq

but his family
won't state his name 
in the paper ---

Gone, gone, the damage done.

But I was more than
just a setting sun,

a little part of me in everyone.