we slept on sofas or sprawled in chairs
our heads back, necks crimping, mouths hanging open
or stretched across a stranger’s bed we slept
or we had found a sober friend somehow
or called a taxicab to take us home
and in the morning (it was afternoon)
all across the nation we came, the third millennium men
coming by bus or by taxicab
coming by lift from a friend
coming on foot, unshowered, unshaven
coming out the doorways of the places where we’d spent the remnants of the night
stretching, yawning, blinking, scratching
heads pounding, stomachs roiling
men of the new era, coming to retrieve our cars
(Copyright 2001, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)