This City

This City

Awakens groggy to fog lagging behind eyelids
Breathes wet trash and dog waste, cut grass and tar
Cruises past each day into the new,
Divines that everything will be left behind,
Erases, stamps and licks dripping sweet pools,
Forgetting numbers and names that call us to return,
Gather like seers, signs that vibrate from the indigo air
Humming power that singes fingertips,
Insists on phrases, half-made as steel beams and corrugated flanks,
Jostles everyone, informal as paper napkins,
Knows that someone will
Listen or ignore or shake their head or pause to think of
Murmurs, whispers, wants, wants,
Needs
Open hands for an instant, then closes tight, while we
Pursue an erratic stutter that
Quickens around us like a child's ball dropped into puddles
Rippling or rebounding or replaying
Struggles swallowed at every
Turn or is torn? For we're
Uprooted, on soggy ground,
Vagrant messengers, we brew
Wonder as we squint into sunlight's ardor,
Xciting no one, we
Yawn, we doze, we scroll
Zipping past shifting screens, we sift, we slip, we slip