Leaning against a wall
of poured cement
despite the twenty five cent pieces
of faded spit stains and
gum like Beechwood bark
stretching left and right like
big cat skins,
the buses come regularly and,
between cussing phone calls and
pacing gentleman in
patch appliquéd jackets and blues,
more infrequent.
Behind mirrored aviators
staring down the barrel
of the high walled speedway
reserved for the P2 and Three, Flyers, and
the heard of 67s
running nose to tail downtown and
every point west in between,
the scale of clouds,
climbing choral and tight and
deep enough to lose in the expanse
of sunlight's streaking
spun streamer density,
is shaking knees and the knocking
is disbelief against the walls of chest
before the curling wave tops and
sound like thirteen hundred horns
raised beyond earshot,
I turn away for my small door and
smaller room with teeth held tight
as the pane of glass
holding back the crush in those spidering popping seconds
before the mouth of asphalt and tunnels
dilating like eyes in the heads
of a nursery.
A blessing
on their souls,
but I am not ready today.
