Riverwalk By James H Duncan

 winter jazz nights alongside black waters dancing red blue green white in all possible Christmas variations, fiesta phosphorescent, the smell of late night fajitas and red wine ebbing in the wind that slips through stone bridges crossing the narrow river snaking through the heart of downtown, a palm tree canopy overhead, little hollows and coves tucked below street-level traffic, grotto solitude where shadows and a lonely cello somewhere soften his touch along your hairline, running one long black curl behind your ear, smiling as I pass by and turn my eyes away into the night, allowing as much intimacy as one can along the Riverwalk, escaping into the darkness of another bridge and stone steps leading me up into halogen yellow streets engulfed by a sudden warm wind, rare for December, though this is south Texas, where heat and a soft caress in the night are so mundane the stars deign not one glimpse down through the cloudless sky, only burn burn burn lifetimes away as their own hearts die a slow fiery death, cautionary tales a million times over, should we care to notice, but we don’t, we won’t, and the river trembles onward through fiesta neon midnight  

James H Duncan is the editor of Hobo Camp Review and the author of We Are All Terminal But This Exit Is Mine, Feral Kingdom, and Vacancy, among other books of poetry and fiction. He currently resides in upstate New York where he works on novels and reviews indie bookshops at his blog, The Bookshop Hunter. For more, visit www.jameshduncan.com.