Day / Night #1
Often I wake
early mornings—crack of dawn
unlatch my window
and watch the shift change:
conveyor belt to breadline
and back again
each morning—crack of dawn
I let my head fall
until the bridge
of my nose is pressed hard
against knuckles and skin
8 million coffee pots, jack hammers,
garbage trucks, street sweepers—
The city is tickled from her stupor
And somewhere in the new sun
the “I” changes
Not ocularis
but me.
Capillaries fill and expand;
I am 20 feet tall,
then a hundred.
I could step down
from my fourth floor window
right onto the pavement
Start ripping the tops
from supermarkets
and punching holes
through bank vaults
gather everything up
in my great big arms;
I feel my great big heart beating wildly.
I’d give it away!
I don’t want any of it!
I’d give it all away!
See if the shift change still happened
each morning—crack of dawn
But I’m stuck,
my body having grown so large
too quickly:
one arm reaches through the door
and down the hall;
the other has punched through the brick
and is now waving at the car wash men down below
and my feet have plowed right through
these cheap tenement walls
all plaster and lathe
and now occupy
Poor Ms. Lopez’ kitchen;
she attacks them ferociously,
thinking they’ve finally come for her—
Doesn’t much matter
if it’s the devil or the INS
They’ll get you in this life
or the next!
Day / Night #2
Often before sleep
I unlatch my window
and crane my neck
to watch the passersby,
each movement rendered red
under the faithful hum
of LED light:
“12 pk. bottled water for $10.99!”
What do you mean you buy that ‘cause you like the taste?
my faucet gives me only rust, so fuck you!
Again, the “I” changes,
but quietly this time,
pulls out until I’m somewhere beyond the atmosphere;
my skin shrivels in the cold
There’s not so much glory in my heart anymore,
so what if my brain cracks electric
a billion times a second?
All of a sudden
I am very small
Like space opened up
along a deep fault:
groaned, yawned, and said
to everyone in a shouted whisper:
Gig’s up!
cosmic subversion trench
but for the briefest moment
space-walk-boog-a-loo
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