Barter: POEMS

Whatever It Is

24 Whatever It Is Whatever it is you call the freshness of dawn it makes animals insane, clacking their beaks, barking at a window pane (their breath a little cloud that muddles and bewilders whatever work must be done). There are buildings to raze, purposes, lists, scores of humans to be devoured on the Killing Fields. No wonder I’m drawn to cracked portions of afternoons, drawing a blanket up to my neck at dusk. You can read into it what you want: blanched, colorless, doughy, sallow and pallid, yes, they become inferences. Descriptive, but signaling too, shutting down whatever’s cracking open the door: dozing on the desk, dreaming of a little illness at the old folks home. Skateboarders streak past, shouting them out of the way.That metallic sound they make is like the ball in the roulette wheel. Now they want to bitch about what they can and cannot do, there’s no civil liberties for them: they can’t smoke, they can’t be promiscuous enough to satisfy the whole neighborhood. Maybe it was better when they played cards together, when somebody else shuffled the deck, 25 when you could sit by the pool and leave tips for the barboy, when in backrooms Ike knocked off Mike, a little missile crisis, then sambas resumed in the ballroom. ...