Last Hour By Greg Huteson

Last Hour

Beside the lime-green pillow and the spread,
he wriggled on a threadbare office chair
while typing lines with rhymes like “Fall” and “pall.”
 
Outside was Texas’ slumped and cheer-drained dusk,
mocked by a passing car’s impertinence,
its vulgar engine wailing till it coughed.
 
The lonesome light bulb hardly held the desk
within its grimy halo. Or the door.
Or the walnut bureau and the glass.
 
While on the shade peonies dimmed and closed,
the spidered window caught the flitting light.
The words were sparse before his fingers stopped.

Greg Huteson’s poems have appeared in or are forthcoming
from The Road Not Taken, Modern Age, the Saint Katherine Review, Better
Than Starbucks, The Honest Ulsterman, Blue Unicorn, and various other
journals. For the past twenty years, he’s lived in China and Taiwan.