Personal Poem

It’s 5:03 a.m. on the 11th of July this morning
and the day is bright gray turning green I can’t stop
loving you says Ray Charles and I know exactly
what he means because the Swedish policeman in the
next room is beating on my door demanding sleep
and not Ray Charles and bluegrass does he know
that in three hours I go to court to see if the world
will let me have a wife he doesn’t of course it wouldn’t
occur to him nor would it occur to him to write
“scotch-tape body” in a notebook but it did occur to
John Stanton alias The Knife Fighter age 18 so why
are my hands shaking I should know better