Outdoor Shower

   
 
          soap     
      softens in
      the corner
  rust and wood     
      water falls                                    two
     cellar door                            maybe three
                                             times while I’m living
                                              won’t be many more
                                                 of that I’m sadly
       give me sun                              sure
where the skin falls
  Sunday morning
      out beneath
     cloudless blue                              Larabelle,
          open air                              bathe my body
                                                      in your summer
                                                    wash my memory
                                                       like pollen from
                                                            your hair
 
 
 

Manhattan Lunch Hour

It is summer and the city is in heat. Snapshots of passing faces, staring up from the tedium of matter. Everyone has a texture; many have a story. Girl with tattoo on shoulder walking two dogs — one light brown, short hair, the other black and fluffy. Unshaven man, about 40, turns to look at her ass. His denim jacket is a shell on his wasted body. A punk teen sits against a building, massaging her boyfriend’s shoulders. His hair is dyed, his long legs jut into the path of pedestrians, ending in orange platform shoes. They are sheepishly enjoying being a spectacle. Spare change, sir? Black dredlocked rasta with shopping bags, palms forward, showing veined forearms. Faraway look. Bodies blur into a sea of thought. There are many lonely trajectories, and ample clusters of blind affiliation. Ambulatory pods of muscle and bone. I am one.

DNA, string of replication, the experience squeezes itself from one node to the next, compounding, complexifying, perpetuating itself. Like sap flowing, like crystals growing. I think of it and moan.