Rikki

                One evening in early November
                I followed a young woman to the virtual end
                of a city cul-de-sac
                as autumn leaves
                spiraled
                downward
                from neighborhood sycamores
                light fragmentations
                dimmed gradually to
                nighttime shadows
                I waited and watched
                while
                she mechanically
                dug keys from
                a designer purse
                placing a
                manila envelope
                between her lips
                she entered into an
                existential realm
                of artificial domestication.
      
                Second time I saw Rikki
                was in a psych-ward cafeteria
                on the outskirt
                of a quaint residential town
                glassy eyed
                retrieving generic cornflakes
                from a plexiglas receptacle
                
                Rikki sold me pills at a neighborhood tavern
                one night in early September
                on Summer's marsupial cusp
                days grew dark
                earlier
                as light in peoples eyes
              
               flicker then wither
              
               
               Rikki abruptly died of a brain aneurysm 
               on the soiled streets of Kensington
            
                the soul from her body
                fell
                as the same leaves of the
                neighborhood trees
                outside the local bar
                she sold me
                pills
                on the
                quaint county outskirt of
                a residential town
    
            
                 I got sent home early that day
                 from a minimal paying job
                 opened a refrigerator door
                 inside my drab efficiency 
                 finding nothing
                 I retrieved a bottle
                 of non-narcotic anxiety medicine
                 from a cabinet
                 above my bathroom sink
                 I downed them all
                 with 20 ounces of lukewarm beer
                 from the prior evening
                 I made a telephone call
                 removed my belt and
                 sauntered down the hallway
                 to my apartment vestibule
                 and
                 waited for a
                 ride back to the psych ward