CONSTITUTIONAL

Lately, as the dried tips 

of everything 

sharpen, 

as the orange things 

turn vermilion 

and the coppers 

grow browner, 

the ellipses
in which I wander 

have been growing commensurately  

wider and wider.

Combing through 

the honed decay of old streets 

is a grim sort of pleasure, 

though I am not really out there 

looking for anything;

I am merely rehearsing 

(and trying to memorize)

that feeling of finding 

precisely what you're looking for—

so that, if my chanciest meeting 

with the vivid color of awareness 

I'm so hungry for

should finally occur,

I shall find myself 

so well prepared 

that I'll keep walking past it 

like I don't even care.