Last Chance to Lose Your Coat

It's late on a Saturday night.
I'm still out even though it's become unexpectedly cold.
It should be a normal night in May.
No jacket required, no breeze creeping up.
There's faint music and drunken slurs
Coming from the direction I'm headed.

The doors open, inviting.
I check my pockets, take a breath
And look down at the grayness.
A couple men by the door call to me.
I look up and go in.

There's always the moment to look back.
And right now I don’t want to.

May twenty-fifth, two thousand and eight.