Saturday, December 1, 2007


SPANNING


This city lost in mist, grey as the cold
statues of the dead we know
are dead just by touching them.

In this mist which looks like remembrance,

I cross a bridge between two boroughs.


I like this span of metal,

the arch and rigid grip of it.

How it holds the thrumming of trucks
close to its marrow, how they pulse up through my feet, a deliberate memory,
long after they've rattled past.

Strangers meet, slung between two points,

fingering switch-blades and nervous coins.
All their furtive iconography of want,
like mileage counters clicking silently

on each blue-lit dashboard below.
Nothing holds me here.

In the wind, the hump-backed

frozen bones of concrete,

the stricken hypodermic of buildings,

I am remembering you.


I wish you could know

what my mouth tastes like now.

My lips are open, I am spanning.

Monsters