where’s the money shot

sunny with a real feel of 5
degrees Fahrenheit

another cruel moment in April
gets trapped under ice

no algae
nothing’s blooming

good or bad
here where the climate trickster

of our own making
never sleeps

Frankenstein’s monster drinks
from the fetid future

has not yet learned
how to lie

he won’t open his eyes underwater
he won’t tell us what he hears

in all that muffled blue
his silence is damaged

if he would declare his damage
it would spill then bleed

into the fibers
of a wrongly-folded map

someone has abandoned
on the frozen ground

remember those

pockets of jamais vu
dot the landscape

with crimson-tinted notes
in the minor key

no one asks to be
the hero image

that spans an iridescent bridge
to nowhere

Blind Pouch

An old air
stream on a newly paved
driveway, a red pickup
like the one I imagined

I would own
one day. Still unlicensed
and not ready

to relinquish
sidewalks, I hug

the side of the road
and think
of the mystery
left in this escape.

Clemens Road

I get lost
on my walk
to see you
in your lost

state. Boiled down
to a translucent film
at the bottom
of a pot, what’s left

will be our eyes
and our hands. They speak
a language
of truth.

There She Is

Not ready for the flash
mob to erase her
memory of him. Or
his name. She confesses

to her Connecticut days
and nights. No one
will recognize her
in this white tee, black

hoody, blue jeans, white
sneakers. She could—and
she will—take
another route home.

Don’t Say Catalyst

Another city, another black
bird soars over pedestrian

heads. I have one. The least
unease matures into full-on anxiety

about what clouds
won’t hold. I’m not afraid

to fly but do fear those
with the will

to—agents flying, flew, have flown.

True Type

When this conversion is complete, I will
no longer be compatible
with myself and all
I said and didn’t
repeat. I will become a new country
where roads are paved for pedestrians only. Not
an aside. Center walks will encircle
the island—bridges dismantled, memories
beside the point.

Another Scramble

Meet me at the bus stop
where we won’t wait
to see another quarter
moon translate the sky 

into a language for pedestrians
without a bridge. We won’t wait

for anything—we’ll be walking across 

12 lanes of traffic,
all lights with us, headed for
a destination we shouldn’t have
been so eager to meet.

Peripatetic Commute

To memorize obstruction,
or just its possibility
in debris flying from men
working, hidden patches of ice
on a side street side
walk, breaks 

serendipity
into slivers too thin
to support the weight
of hope, too sharp
to be ignored.

Gigantic Perspective

Skyways run between second
floors in an irregular pattern
she forgets to decode. 

But she believes she must
duck
when approaching beneath— 

her pedestrian movements
can be so erratic, better
not to risk it.