Sun Sets in Pedro

By Hank Cherry

All the things that fill up heads
Gaskets, novelizations
Hills like white elephants
The things that take a bow
When your last words
Are etched in the stone
Of someone else’s ear
All the things that fill up
Space, chart destiny
By way of neuroses
Smell the bright lights lingering
Know that the scent
Of infamy is hidden from us all
In a matter of seconds In a matter of long shots
In Inglewood by the airport
Where they search the cavities
Of starlets and losers alike
All those things mess with
Highs and good times
And bring downs, and less thans
In the time it takes to wise up
At post time, in the meanness
Of awe, all the things
That matter, hover in a timelessness
Not one of us can budge.