Pretending to Cry
    
      for Billy Boone

          by Nadine Lockhart


It’s one shiny city, Las Vegas,
but today a storm’s come, 
the gray rolling closer, hard
drops hit the hotel window,
windows that don’t open. 

And you, I’ve had it with you,
can’t think of one promise
you’ve kept, from oral sex 
to sensual massage. Last night, 
you sleep back toward me. 

I never move: Cold . . . 
awake. 	At 3am, 
the teeth-grinding begins, 
a sort of sucking whistle 
meets cracking bone. 

Mid-morning, you say,
If you leave, we’re done.
I’m thinking like a soldier: 
Where’s your devastation? 
The sobbing?

Triage begs an image:
You in the rain, a pretense
. . . dripping and clapping,
me in a taxi,
leaving for Phoenix.

At the airport, the cabbie 
lets me slide for a five 
I tell him I don’t have.
I lied. And I have been
lied to.