Walking around,
thinking about that poet in New York
while roosters hide in tents
with masked and dented
dreams fleeing

tombstones
placed flat

instead of upright

in the street,

waiting
for fire escapes
in the downtown din

of the brain
with helicopters
searching for patterns

to appear

trying to make sense
of words

wrapped in a keen blade
of love,
circling the square,
arriving
again

on a path with less meaning
than a white plastic pail
tied to a tree branch,

swinging

in the slanted sun’s
orange dust

out of reach
from empty grocery carts
in encampments

with heads jammed

in the moan of a radio,

starved and depraved,
waiting
like a sad and beautiful
cherry blossom tree
for warm weather in April,

along the very thin line
that separates
the million-dollar
bayfront homes
from
the less
who were,
a short time ago,

children

sobbing, stuck
in the grass the geese eat

valued less than

a box of rusty nails at a flea market,

wishing it were all over,
encased
in a threshold of
swollen defeat

inside government buildings

and city drop-in centres

like leaves blowing through

a trail of letters
leading home

or back to the liquor store

with enough change
to buy a cheap sherry

knowing
outside isn’t going anywhere.