CITY OF QUOTIDIA

On its night-
time skyline, strange
pulsing apparitions—

be they, at length, 

ancient stars, or some 

arcane technologies—

display

the same famous 

vicissitudes of nature 

by bestowing their

miracles, then 

taking them away;

while the three million 

overused denizens 

who behold them

are filled with neither 

courage, nor 

dissatisfaction—

but rather, 

that frank, urban kind 

of routine wonder 

whose very weakness 

is its strength.

HIDDEN INPUTS

Looking up 

for the roughly fourteen 

thousandth time 

at the pocked, 

cockeyed face of a

three-quarter moon 

as it floats there, 

treading the 

infinite waves 

of this goalless, 

shoreless 

ocean of a universe;

I'm confused 

to find that, inside, 

I'm still thrilled 

to believe 

there must still be 

something left 

to parse in me, 

some invisible fragment

still worthy 

of rescue—

even if it looks, 

at best, blotted-out 

or lost 

in its own black 

and most boundless 

of all possible pools: 

the one with no depth, 

no surface, 

no rules.

TO RECAP

Is there anything less 

pathetic than 

the goldfish

laconically swimming 

through the weak 

indoor lighting 

which pervades 

the lump of water in its 

sterile, spheroid bowl,

and perpetually turning 

in the same direction: 

away 

from the ocean it intended 

to explore? 

Presumably 

not you,

who so often spent

so many wild nights 

riding 

some strange 

and subtle currents

of the water-smooth truth—

only to wake up 

adjacent to drool 

and confused 

to find that you'd detoured 

right back 

to the same prosaic 

corner you'd renounced 

the day before.

REGRET

In this life, 

there are many

and hospitable buildings—

the kind to which 

daily access is granted 

to billions. 

Then, there are those 

slightly less 

accommodating places: 

a cramped, remote 

fishing hut 

built for one person,

or a cozy 

but dilapidated 

backwoods cabin 

the roads to which 

are passable only 

in the dry season. 

For each of us, 

though, there is, 

at the last,

that one immense, 

distant, and 

solitary castle—

with its fierce, 

gilded towers and its 

halls of frozen marble

all commissioned by our hunger—

which we were proud once

to inhabit 

but, ever since, 

have merely permitted 

to secretly exist 

without the slightest desire 

or intent 

to revisit.

TOIL AND TROUBLE

The hands that survive 

at the ends 

of these arms 

were never 

designed to prepare 

for war—

nor were they made 

to clench 

in censure, or even

to lie open and bare 

in a gesture 

of peace. 

Rather, here are two hands 

that were raised

to turn pages;

to brush back 

and down, with the grain 

of all dog fur;

to depress 

small contingents 

of congenial piano keys. 

These hands were made

to shelter secrets 

neverending—that is,

when they aren't 

employed otherwise,

wiping clean and straightening 

those treasures 

which were made by the 

stubborn hands of others 

and are, therefore, exceptionally 

worthy 

of preserving.

SHORTHAND

The way I'm so 

conflicted 

and perpetually 

in the grip of you, 

it's like

I might as well 

be the chewed 

no. 2 pencil 

you clench 

in a test you're 

attempting to pass: 

one side of me 

says

all the things 

you want me to; 

the other 

shrinks and 

blushes pink

as it tries

to take them back.

QUIETUS

All at once, 

in assault from 

above 

comes the shrill, 

punchy call of free-

migrating geese—

ricocheting off 

our asphalt, 

our high shelves of glass, 

and our citywide 

armories of bright- 

angled brick. 

This might be 

what Taps 

would sound like 

were it blared 

at mid-day 

by amnesiac buglers:

the giddy death knell

of this rough-

drafted morning—

of today's 

first, unpolished 

idea of itself.