I sing it from
The rooftop hotspot
Sight that can be seen
Across the city
Limits
City unpredictability

These nights
I balance a
Crown of construction
Looking down on
Multifaceted streets
Yellow taxis at a
Red light green light
Restless leg syndrome
The damaged goods
Unrequited love beneath
A street light
Street walker
Stalker in the midst

Maniac cops and
Smutty street corners
Pretend not to notice
These monumental streets
My voice
Dies out

There’s a
Yellow streak
On the horizon
Gourmet coffee in hand
Think I’ll leave
This town tonight
Again
Try to make the ugliness seem
Not so bad
Like an orchestra
In Bushwick
Construction
From decay
This is my adventure
This
This is my dilemma
My delay

Tophat, topcrusted
Cobbler
Like a train station
Conductor
Takes over
Con-doctor
Rocks me back to shapes
Of blue
I remember
Fine blue that is hooked in my crani-
Umbrellas will shelter, not hide
Undercover

This hailstorm in place of
The rain when
Clouds are uncommon
And now I am chasing a star-
Gazer fix it on me
The flimsiest pastry I’ve seen
To think I’m a traveler
Who dabbles haphazardly
Innocent conflicts are clean

And passengers tire
When train wrecks acquire
When damage excess has been done
Don’t damage the lining
My stomach depicting
A candle on carpet on fire
Just vacuum the slivers
The leftover fibers
At last
I am berried in pie

When I was young
My father asked me
If I knew how I should act
Around the boys.
I laughed. I had
A friend at school
Tendencies like a madwoman
Toppling down the slides
Working the jungle gym
Hands raw from climbing ropes
Looked like my twin.

Married once
To a boy on the soccer field
Must’ve been love
Witnesses, bridesmaids, the works
Watched me walk down
A grassy aisle
Watched me kiss him
Passionately, the way third graders do
No tongue
Soccer service style
Divorced him the day after
With sufficient grounds
He was cussing again, dammit.
Clearly he had much to learn.

At health and safety
A man stood
At the front of the room
Told us what we shouldn’t do
“Smoking kills, kids,” he said.
“Now where’s my pack of Reds?!”
Looking out for us
The way my sister did
During harmless games
With Rich Uncle Pennybags
You might know him as Mr. Monopoly
Carried a cane in the game
But sat around all day smoking
Cuban cigars
You probably bought his land
For more than it was worth.

I was ten
My brother took me
To the Cincinnati Omnimax
Theatre in the city
Face planted his arm for fifteen minutes
Until I forgot him
Forgot there was an audience
Flying over the Himalayas alone
Free as a boardwalk
Wanted to keep the rush
Take it home with me
Sleep with it, eat with it, dream with it
This moonscape sensation
Could not be contained
I tried to
Save it in a drawer
But the feeling wouldn’t stay
Cascaded like a passenger train
En route to Seattle
I don’t mind missing payday
If I get to see the coast, I said
“I’m still a dreamer
But of a tactless kind
I still know how to soar.”
I have my dreams on featherbedding
When a memory is shedding
Deadly skin
Please come again
And brush my skin cells to the floor.

A cold iron
Hides the wrinkles now
A lifetime of doubt
In exchange for feeling
Like a psychiatric geriatric
A cappuccino
Half emptied
From an empty bakery bar

She went through life
Knowing she’d never
Win the sweepstakes
Kept score on the scoreboard
Relived all the pitfalls
And she is her doorknob destroyed
Those years
As useless as space in Las Vegas
Do not be deceived by the lie
What happens in Vegas
Always leaves Vegas
Always is clinging
Consuming the mind-

Instead of consume it
I’d rather rematch it
Than drink this disaster
This wine
Burns me up
Not as cold as a lizard
I won’t let it wrinkle my skin
I want to release all these rulings
These physics
I want to regain the position
Of finding my birthright
It’s topaz my birthstone
I’m tossing these rocks to the air