#55

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up the way from the lock
he's sat there quiet, his
dog muzzled and bound to a pipe,
on the stoop of the corner store.
he's reading a worn-through copy of The Godfather.
he's hoping someone else's faith can
relieve him.
I'm not sure about the validity of savior-ship, but I guess it doesn't hurt
for some people to try,
whatever lets you sleep at night.
an hour's walk away there's another man.
he wheels a bike with a life's load of things strapped to it,
his dog walks steady by his side.
he too is hoping for that goodwill.
his raging music tells me so.
you walk a bit further and the story grows.
a woman pushes a childless cart across traffic.
the fields between dilapidated buildings are full of lovers and children on bikes.
further along, someone else goes and boards a train.
they've got a paper structure in a bag and paint smeared from pant to shoe,
mismatched laces and a hat with two black buttons top their head. a woman with
large glasses stares ahead straight on.
the other side of the platform boasts bookworms on benches waiting,
the ride has been delayed.
strikes are set to begin early this week, it's sunny out right now.
and anyway, I don't much mind waiting,
the fridge light is broken, and there's water on the floor. the fallout of a blown fuse
or a circuit gone short.
sometimes culture proves itself to be more than an artificial show.
it's more than a silver fantasy.
and you realize, we'll always be here "blowing in the wind," fighting against thinning
margins, we'll always be here
wondering if we're a waste to history—
there's so much terror out
that we forget about that which lies on our own front porches.
a war at home is a war, nonetheless. it sucks all ways.
it's all wicked,
harrowing. but out it reigns
across borders and you wonder, while it flickers across screens and paints the walls
and litters the stands,
how it can continue to get worse.
no one's safe from the eventuality of dying.
just a few steps from becoming daisies it seems.
that's just the way,
though some on top continue to rave about space colonies. not even the weight
of their pockets can pull them down
to here where the bins are promoting violence against landlords
and flyers beg for forgiveness from political sins.
vote labor some windows say
vote liberal comes from others
the lamp post says something else, as does the mailbox
and the person that's stood on the bench.
vote
vote
vote
this is how we pave a way or try to.
the cherry blossoms are crying while the laundry hangs out, drying on the neighbor's
terrace. time passes and the sounds of monotony blur into something that
almost feels like a memory, but more like routine.
I myself buy a bag of oranges once a week
and stub my toe when I turn on the fan that sits on my floor after I wake in a sweat.
the boy across the street plays his guitar until his sister comes home
and then they each grab their bikes and go elsewhere. the little girl in the house
next to theirs goes with her mom to buy pastries on Sunday mornings.
roommates visit boyfriends on weekends and return for a day. coworkers lay out plans
of chasers and endless nights, one of them will later double over
on the cobblestones, the same rocks that cats who hop fences land on
and bless when they cross paths thrice in a mouse-chasing frenzy.
men in tweed buy books at the green house that stands a few blocks away,
maybe that's where the first man found The Godfather. 
the bodegas sell bowls of kumquats and small apples for 1.50, there's tulips in bloom, and wisteria is on the climb up— all these are the whispers. the screams are the
crushed packs of golds and reds that sit comfortable on the concrete floor
and the abundance of buzzballz and other plastic liquor flasks left empty on the tops
of brick walls that are caving in. ambulances wail and helicopters leave a faint trail.
and here I speak like I'm some J Kerouac or D Thomas. another wannabe poet of the common man, who reads too much about death,
and writes about it even more. who snaps photos of the streets and
takes note of all those she doesn't know.
she watches the men with their cardboard signs and the women pushing prams
across traffic and the children who've rented basketballs and play
in the neighborhood court. and on her walk, she calls her grandma, who speaks twice over and struggles with names. and she calls her own mom even more.
she and I like to laugh about death, together.
we joke about how we'd like to mix
hers, mine, my father's, my sister's, and all our pet's ashes together
come the day we knock out for the last time.
and now I've gone on for too long, those heavy pockets might be in space now.
I doubt it, because
the sky looks pretty.
I'd bargain that the day the sky loses its glory and luster
will be the day their weight has left the ground.
alas, the matters of spare change.