Cola

"My pussy tastes like Pepsi Cola"
I overheard the drunk man say
while being carried by his friend,
or partner, or lover,
away from the bar.

Their happy campy laughter
bouncing off the city with
the throbbing beat and bass of
dance music as each song is
mixed and blurred and looped

forming an endless carbonated
stream of sounds and sexualities
bodies and identities bubbling up
and carousing down the dingy and
dilapidated downtown district.

The effervescent sticky-sweet
smell of ribald revelry condenses
against the cold night air as
friends and lovers stream, beading
and coalescing against the pane
of being alone.

Love, or lust, or friendship, or
loneliness like an accident
striking blindly and meaninglessly
startling and sudden and shocking
and banal as a shattered glass.

Somewhere else on this night
in this city another man may be
being clutched or carried confused
and calling out desperately
desiring a drink of Pepsi
or Coke.