John Doyle writes

Almost

"Still I Dream of It..." 
Brian Wilson

"Under neon loneliness/motorcycle emptiness..." 
Patrick Jones/Manic Street Preachers

A ghost paints herself whiter than

snow that almost fell around us, between us, perhaps;
her bones burning through leather, through the clasp of air
that washes evenings from the endless dead of highways,
of Helvetica signposts where towns end in names
that tell me nothing,

that gave me life, almost;
and the dash of rum trembles on the table near the floor where almost
all the others danced, but I dreamed that somehow they could turn and stare at us,
in orange glasses shone on whitened face,
the kiss of leather and silent broken heart,
and the sunset laid out in stripes like dead hell's angels
on highways where Helvetica spells her name
in a flash of 2:22am, and the lights that blind her kiss
in flickered fits on face-starved pillows,
blood slowly pink
in snow,
like the colours we once touched,
hand painting skin,
the rattlesnake cough of pining child, and flashed fingers of withdrawal,
and a memory killing what was almost ours,
leather and bloodied nose
and the infant fires behind her
driving pistons into a saddened curse of shattered night -
orange,
red,
black leather -
none of these claimed by the scorch of sunrise, nor the whimpered setting sun
in body bags stamped with Helvetica seal;
I watch the highway, from a distance measurable
only in years

almost, if even that

The Good Side -- Jeffrey Hein