the doctor

"Give me a martini, extra dirty."
multiple identities,
split

later he was a cowboy
with green promises
now he has a crew cut
at the bar

my life is a lucid nightmare
from a hospital bed
sour and crimson
stuck in that impossible,
shadowless room

I've done this before

"Here, hold this."
I'm handed... instruments
He shows me... pictures,
points and says
"You did that"

"Now get out!"
I stagger away drunkenly
tripping over the tips
of my cowboy boots
in the cracks
of a silent brick
Georgetown alley

I stop by a canal
wobbling in a daze
loitering in front
of an empty bottle

smelling the acrid water
under a bridge,
where I normally sleep
clothed like a bum
in the chilly fog
of the Potomac

but it was just a man,
with a doll
in a foggy alley
after all