Bad News Walking
She came in sideways through the door like trouble tends to do,
hips first, shoulder cocked, already owning half the room,
her mouth set in that crooked way that says I will ruin you
and I felt my whole chest drop into a bruise
Something in the way she stands, all loaded and all loose,
the kind of woman built from smoke and ninety-proof,
and I have been destroyed before by curves like these,
but my hands are already sweating through my sleeves
Bad news walking and I am locked in tight,
she is every wrong decision wearing black tonight,
I have crash-landed here before and crawled out raw,
bad news walking and she is all I saw
She leaned against the wall and let her jacket slip,
bare collarbone and the hollow at her hip
where the denim rides too low and shows too much
and I am ten feet away and I can feel the touch
Her eyes found mine across the noise and held,
not asking, telling, like a verdict spelled
in the slowest possible letters on my skin,
bad news walking and I am walking in
She does not bother with the gentle introduction,
just leans close enough to make my breathing malfunction,
her perfume hits my bloodstream like a shot of kerosene,
bad news walking, the finest wreck I have ever seen