Sleeping between Kerouac and Nabokov. Dreaming with Dean Moriarty and Humbert Humbert. Wondering what the outcome will be. His life on the road. And his infatuation with a teasing young girl. Are there any saints left. Maybe. Perhaps.

Steam heat whistles throughout the night. A train runs past my window. The Red Line going to Howard. Then back to 95th Street. All night long. The stopping and starting up of steel wheels running on tracks above a city and below in Hell. It’s three o’clock in the morning. Do you know where your writers are?

A tossing in bed has become routine at this time of night. I get dressed, grab Henry Miller, and join the drunks coming out of bars, nighthawks at diners, cops cruising, whores seducing, and vagabonds who make up this town. We all have to die someday.

I get on at Belmont and take the train south while reading The Rosy Crucifixion. Sentences yellowed with markers. A coffee stain on page thirty-five. Candy wrappers for book markers. I was thirty-three, the year Christ crucified.

Men and women asleep in seats. Heads up against windows. The smells of booze and stains on their clothes. A woman talking to herself. Some kid about to pounce. I have given my life to this; watching, observing, and writing what I see. Recording the details in poetry. Isn’t that what writers do?

I watch some and read a little. Comparing Chicago and New York. Heaven and Hell. There will always be the poor among you. The meek shall inherit the earth.

Dear God. I’m ready for my inheritance.