DAYS
Foot beats on the street
where memory hums to itself
on wet tires and in the dark rooms
of empty pockets where voices
slow through a sea of fogged windows
and into the next world.
Awakened, I crouch in a city of dry leaves,
hunched and hungry, unhurried, and drinking air.
An electrical fever of streetlights yellows
the weather; hours run like ink
into a hole beneath my feet.
The sun bullies up like a battered fighter, balancing
on the dull patience of a razor. This is how it goes
day to day; shadows sink into pavement, and the sky,
stiff as iron, is a knotted sheet each hand grapples for.
One day lends itself to the next. Workmen line boulevards
like prayer beads, awaiting the final justice
their lives have struggled to become. Above them the city rises
and the word is made flesh before the dust of day
settles like a prophet into the pit of my throat.
I bicycle winds whose echoes
mock silence with sawdust smiles. This is how it goes
in a life where love wakes behind doors it does not recognize,
tapping out random rhythms of loneliness
that sweep one hour into another. All around us
the landscape holds up straw arms and sings,
believing hands that once held stars
always lead to heaven.