The crook was let out tonight.
He finds his place with the jagged rocks
that shimmer in the kiss of the moonlight.

He watches the men in the streets.
They're all flying on their feet.
He sees them speak in jackknife stares.
He sees their silent cries, not from their rough lips
but worn like wounds on their faces.

There's something where the air used to be.
The crook speaks to the dying waves
like the only friends he could still claim.
They crash not towards the shore but away from it.
Old fighters counting their lossing and going home.
The beach is so quiet tonight.

The crook stumbles down the alleyways,
with all those sweet switchblade saints of yesterday.
They cannot win the war they wage with time.
The others glance at them like they're only pieces
of a grotesque gallery of how things were.
The old crook prays for them at night.