I told you about the ruined Santa Claus
who crept from the sideways chimney�
Seething rat hair beard, grey sack sagging
on the dirty platform. You stroked

my cheekbones, each finger hard
and slender, like a hearth poker.
�People live down there,� you said,
almost warmly, as if saying it
was comforting. You led me by the hand

from the kitchen. We shivered and had sex
on the floor of the bedroom.
For just a moment, from a window
across the alley I saw the face
of a small Mexican kid, and a plastic toy
tuba in his mouth. He was staring

at us, eyes large as baubles and glowing
blue from the light of a television.
Afterwards, I kept looking across the alley.
He was gone, but while you slept

I thought I could hear tuba squeaks,
and our roaches fucking in the closet�
the sound of their tiny black shells
clacking in the dark, like pairs of castanets.