streetsweeper

streetsweeper

 

      Along crumbling

shadows and alleyway

corridors

      I am the cat’s

tongue     washing

the asphalt impossible

faces of cities --

      and there I have found

that the ghost of blood

      lingers     where blood

      has long since flaked away

and been thrown to the wind --

      the cyclic recurrence

of memory     and then:

 

winter comes --

      and each night

      a lace frost

cocoons around windows,

stretches out over concrete --

      its prying fingers

threading towards soft loam

and disintegration

 

      A dry rain rolls over the gutterbabies

with the day’s sweat

from hot brick sides

of skyscrapers,     metal

      rattling down their throat

as the moon     rises over the city:

      the illuminate elbow of god

propped against men’s fancies.

 

I find my babe

      in the rainwash tonight,

      and I am a ragdoll father --

while I kiss her face

      blue runs from her eyes like oil,

and she nods when I say,

      "Do you hear the city?"

black wings

beating against the sky.

 

Over the crook of my arm

      her eyes fall back

      and I know she is watching.

This is how we

hold one another:     tenuous

      in the silence after movement

like echoes

      in pipeline.

 

      From the roof-edge of the highest

building     its lights

      popping on like a

scattered chorus

of fireflies --

      I hold her out

to the hazy red

opening sun.

           

      As you are trying to catch

the dark air      your feathered arms,

     

      I see the city

reach for your seamless body,

 

and gather you,

as gently as a child as you fall.

 

Reviews

[Geneticstar]

How do I do vs vs ??? My "option-dash" characters (Mac keyboard) show up here as quotation marks.

[katyj]

deep, powerful and intriguing