In the Lucky Dragon

The poet sits in a street-side booth.
He stares out at water-slick canyons
aglow in a thousand neon suns.
High-heeled secretaries click by.
Dented black cabs dice
for curb position, almost hitting
a blind man and his wet dog.
Police sirens punctuate the night.
Pungent Szechwan cooking
permeates damp air, almost,
but not quite, obscuring
the stink of spilled beer.
Working girls in too high
heels strut past the Lucky Dragon.
They stop, smile, wave to the poet inside.
Some nights the pen bleeds magic
on the page—Some nights
the pen hangs captive in cast-iron air.

Fred Davis was born in Wenatchee and raised all over the world as a military dependent. He returned to Wenatchee upon retirement from the Department of Defense and graduated from WVC in 2002 with an AAS transfer degree. This is the third time Mirror Northwest has published his work.