Out there a litany—
angry gods, indigestible,
on an endless loop,
the insistence of each story
a bone held to a chest,
barbed wire against a cheek,
the should-have-been
backspun and pervasive,
absorbed briefly
by the seasonal drink:
lemon zest and grains
of paradise, rare pepper
and thirteenth-century spice
poured into talk aligned
like portable bruises, barstools
a seating chart,
numbered but not exact.
In here a lament—
the sobering light,
industrial hand soap,
towel on an endless loop
to say clearly what's up:
we are not the first
but only the latest,
the science of obscurity
a needle
with techno piped in,
happily siloed among fields
where salt rushes to find
its way back to ocean,
an underwater dance,
angular in nature, not glass.
It would be faster
to stroke the blade
of a hacksaw.
It would be more pleasant
to drive to the river's edge.
It would be easier
to dig for gods
in the backyard
where shells once grew feathers
among limestone and ash.
But we have swallowed our tongues
de rigueur, as is the custom,
and here, in the garment district,
it's a never-ending mirror,
a box where I may linger,
joyfully muddled,
halfway between
illusioned and lost.
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