Owed To A Cab

I stepped out into the night to hail a cab.
“O hail great Yellowed Checkered Whale.”
Take me home upon your back

tied down like Ahab
on last legs beckoning
throughout the ocean of streets

shellacked with rain.
O weave your magic
through the conundrums of traffic

and the twisted brethren—
their brains afire —
staggering out of Nightclub Hell.

How many times have you saved my soul?
Whisked me away from my trysts of folly
my wayward obsessions and Bacchanal feasts,

the days of beauty; the nights of the beast?
You have kept sacred for me always
the glow of your “Taxi” top burning.