River boat banners curl between
the god sneezed stars like stack smoke
when this town used to make things
more than places to hide
between trips to ports and visitations of
the ugliness of the perimeter,
the head banging to bars and the hours
lost when a skull breaks through and
the shoulders never do.
River boat banners curl like long exposures
on new cameras with bad settings at a party
for two, pregamed to bursting, and then
fifteen more friends dropped in and a voice said
you only live twice so make the first
death count. Seeing them touch
the points of light like time lapse connect the dots
worried over by a dyslexic with no attention span
and a bad eraser, you watch your breath
balloon gray blue in the moonlight.
Gray blue river boat banners of contrails
have fallen from the upper atmosphere and
are kiss blowing as they gift wrap
the sky over head. The sky you can take
in with dilated pupils and winter rouged cheeks.
They furl and sway and you could touch them
if you knew how to swim and leaped
from the handrail with everything you had,
but you push back,
push up sky, Spaceman,
and let it wheel
because without you where you are
it is nothing close
to what it is.
