"Broadway Baby Says Goodnight" by Mark J. Mitchell

Her story’s naked but her city is clothed.

It wears fog like ermine—soft white, with spots

that hide old truths but let her new sins show.

She sings sentimental songs that she loathes

from yellowed charts. Notes float away like thoughts,

naked as stories. Her unfolded clothes

drift in packed closets, like the dirty snow

on warm mornings. A long skirt she forgot

hides truth in pockets. It still doesn’t show

her filthy adolescence. Her unknown

flat notes stay safe. She invents clever plots

for naked stories while the city’s unclothed

by dawn’s dull song. Her upright piano

casts shadows—short—across a rug that’s not

made to hide truth. It always lets sins show.

She yawns, plays the last song—the one that knows

about her youth—what she learned, who she taught

naked stories. The city’s windows are closed,

curtained. Truths and sins go on with their show.

Mark J. Mitchell has been a working poet for 50 years. He’s the author of five full-length collections, and six chapbooks. His latest collection is Something To Be from Pski’s Porch Publishing. A novel, A Book of Lost Songs, is due out this spring. He’s fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Dante, and his wife, activist Joan Juster. He lives in San Francisco where he points out pretty things.