It’s the one who’s always smiling
you fear more than a stone

wall of memories covered in
gregarious graffiti. Trust

twists its way into a frown
with much less effort. The lone turkey

that appears again, poking in the grass
beside the soccer field fence,

gets more of your sympathy
than any gang would.

A peloton of cyclists churns dangerously
close as you fight to keep

your own pace. You beat
the freight train across the tracks.

Wave to the engineer once you’re safely
on the other side. You’re too old

to hop on. Not ready to become
a ghost. Too scared to ghost

an imposter. You are
the imposter. Dust

still on your shoes.
Not ready to be ghosted

just because the song doesn’t live
up to the riff. The bird man’s back.

The geese are gone. More ducks
than you can remember

swim beneath the tree bent
over the lake to protect them.

No one is screaming
in the park at dawn today.

A vessel kills itself
to overcome a fear of heights

a thousand miles away, and back
here nowhere near

a tidal estuary, a building

gets deconstructed accurately
without precision. All concrete

and chrome-tinted windows,
it’s a velcro afternoon

slipping into a crushed
velvet civil twilight. You know

to stay low—an open-top hopper
filled with gravel ahead.