Death in Hampden

Death in Hampden

I want to be impaled by a pink flamingo.
I want to crawl on the midday concrete
With a festival swirling around me,
Suffocating in vomit-rot air
Dying here in Hampden.

I want to lurk in dark bars,
Swilling beer in plastic cups. I want to be surrounded
By ladies with bouffants. I want to
Stifle under piles of velvet Elvises,
Plastic lawn furniture, paper cones.
Buried alive in Hampden.

Dying here
I will die of thirst, reaching out
one last hand, drowning in a saltwater sea
Of beer, sun burning my ears.

Confused, enraged, I will run
Through heated streets, a mad bull,
Transfixed by plastic straws.
A pink flamingo, falling from the sky,
My coup de gras.

Death in Hampden
Uncurls in front of me, along the street,
In the crowds, plays with dogs and small children,
Stumbles gracelessly, stares at glass-fronted
Two dollar stores, dances in dive bars,
Counting the hours.

I have always been dying in Hampden.