The place is full of noisy drunks
and junkies doing the tweaker shuffle
around periodicals, eyeing
the room between slats,

talking to themselves like broken
tracks, books on tape
in the downstairs racks—by the sound
of it some romance,

or seedy noir fiction
whose characters are all public
masturbators and private eyes
coked up and chasing tail.

The man beside me is oblivious
to the man who steals his phone,
now crab walking the stairs,
and spotted, tosses it away,

bolts, is shouted down
from the balcony where most don’t
look up, and a passed out few
twitch and drool.

I feel at home here
near men who sit and stare
into the blank of tables,
or amazingly, unblinking into lights—

who cut coupons with pocket knives
shedding strips of paper on carpet,
and sleep on windowsills
like curled cats, lazy in the sun.