Homecoming Tallahassee
by Kavita Gandhi
(published in The Loch Raven Review, Winter 2009)
We passed into the city
like sterile vessels
aching under the 3 o’clock hour.
Our eyes staggered through
the epileptic cop car lights,
picking still freeze scenes
from the festival blur.
Loud rice cake voices, singing blandly,
motored by, while bass-lines
bucked the soft, dark fat
of the night’s underbelly.
The town was an echo
of beastly thundering.
Alley cat eyes prowled
in aimless acquisition.
Traffic jammed,
bumper-bumper rut
thumped on the gas.
Booming happy swarms
bounced off our headlights.
Gaping past the cranking cars,
I saw the quiet moon shudder in the sky.
