A Detective Sonnet

Words find no purchase in these streets.
I could wake the silence with a gun
and all the confession worth a buy
is a shrug, a blink of sun.

If only you could see man as I
see him, every tunnel of day
blundering in the blind, a cul-de-sac
through which evil empties its ways,

you would understand why all I want is a woman
whose heart hits me true and right,
and that will be enough --to be here, a stiff
drink warming in her light

and her tears christening my past
when my case is closed at last.

Published in Broken by the Rain (2003)