Shapeshifter

This time I come in with the trainsmoke
Catch the Midnight Ghost at the edge
Of another small town and roll across the border after dark
With the rickety-clack and roar of the great wheels turning
I leave the trainyard in the early morning fog
Work my way downtown
With the streetsweepers rumbling in the gutter and the seagulls
Fighting over what's left of Saturday night.

I don't talk to anybody, not at this hour
There are scars on my hands and secrets buried
Deep in my eyes
I'm alright when I find an abandoned cup of coffee on the church step
Pick a long butt off the street and smoke it in the alley
With the matches from the Tennessee Diner
And an old scabhound sleeping on a bed of cardboard beneath the fire escape.

This morning there's a voice across the alley
Moaning with the delirium tremens in the doorway of an old hotel
I'd help him, but I'm not strong enough yet
The only one who knows me here is the guy with the bell and the clapboard sign
Standing like a scarecrow at the corner of Mars and 4th.
"I remember your face," he says, when he thinks no one's listening
"But I've forgotten your name…"
"It's alright," I tell him. "1307 was a bad year for all of us."

Time always goes so fast. Still
I remember the sound of the ocean and the way
The salt hangs in the air on the right kind of night
When the fog rolls in and wraps the streets in a whispery
Blanket of half-remembered dreams and for a few short hours
You can pretend that everything is different.

Alma always said: "Watch out for the cold years.
The winter and the razor and the drink like amber tears."

I forget the rest of it, but I can still hear her voice
On those sad October nights
When the moon hangs low and the stars do their perfect little dance
And I remember the time when I stood at the foot of a cross
In the desert and looked up, at the dying man I had just been
and would be
Again, someday…but it's a long way
From Golgotha to the back door of the Astoria Hotel.

So for now I'm waiting…waiting for the stars to be right.
Waiting for my time to come again.