Looking back on Tempe

when I met my first

typewriter

–sitting in that chair

the machine upon the desk

cigarette burning like youth

the hot spring night begging for poems,

for stories from that room

–the bare mattress on the floor

–my clothes scattered

my useless job up the street

my cassette player belting out metal while I wrote

or belting out metal while I drank on the floor

with a waitress

but the night and the words

the beauty of having no idea about

what the fuck I was doing

with the word

the waitress

the job, the life

I knew I had to tap the words out

and keep them flowing

to keep me from being useless

and the spring fell

into the red hot hands of summer

and I left there.