Wednesday, May 31, 2017

I SIT, AND MEANWHILE BACK

Take care: it's getting harder
and harder—
to be

somebody
out here. Despite blue
suburban skies,

there's a furious-
mad but
directionless wind

that keeps blowing
and blowing on the street—
and no one

else can see it.
It's yours
alone, and it's

blowing
you
nowhere.

And even their
greatest metaphors
seem

to hold
no sway anymore;
most things just are.

Or—more
precisely, you know it
when they aren't.

For instance, all those
Penny Lanes 
you remember,

dazzling uncountable
miles of them—
in all sizes,

far flung,
shade and sun-
spangled—

might be
stopping-up your
ears and eyes;

but
not a single one of them
will ever exist

the way you
really need it to—
as pavement.

As asphalt and rebar
and paint
and concrete

underneath
your sore and
intransigent feet.