his cigarette lights

 

his cigarette lights

morning comes across his hands

and he lingers at the light like a wildflower

long enough to be absent and abstract

someone three cars back

in the pell-mell hour

screams honks twice

jerks so hard the car whines and jostles

traffic finally moves

the 2nd car makes a right west

toward the sea and early sun

the sea is billowy and young

and not yet green

inflates the morning with sound

seagull struggles in the tempest

dives through the emptiness  

a woman watching him go

that fast loses him in the loud blue

she secures her hat her dress

straining against her thighs and breasts

finds herself exposed

adjusts her mouth to see what the

next breath holds

the next breath stirs the young man

who meets the girl whose laughter is

as easy an elation as wearing new shoes

kisses her behind the oleanders at the pier

the cats catch him definitionless in the half sun

the cats are a spectrum of sun

and the pier is 12 miles long

a group of resolute men are going to the end

but won’t wait for me

i have so many things to gather

strewn about on the ground

and i am blinking blue  

straining in the rising flashes of light

now citizen with no antecedent  no story

coming into the wide port morning

my small cargo of wilting words

like static when the city rises

the transmissions etch incoherent

the translucent randomness

an echo of laughter

two strong seconds of song

one minute of tuning whine

and somewhere in a quarter hour of haze

an announcement in tagalog

the people have appeared

the people have appeared

even the lovers who have made this their place

for she attends cosmetology academy

and he is a young custodian at the school district

she moves his hair back over his ears

he cleans her face with his kisses

                                                            

 

and each day where the

scheduled squares of city sky

framework the afternoon

and change reference as

the sun slants the bright loud hour

they arrive in the legislated garden

of the bank building atrium

and sit on the dark watersheen marble

 

outside the blvd veers right at them

down a short hill to the plaza

people come and go

a meter maid moves between the parked cars

and a push of starling volleys into air

up the mathematics of windows

toward the partitioned sky

 

 

she has cut her hair

she turns to let him see her neckline

it would be perfect to kiss the swallow of it

the movement into her earthen shoulder

over her right breastand watch the red lights stammer

the UPS truck ease into shadow

her knee begin to shine

 

they leave

and noon darkens into afternoon

the meter clicks and skyscrapers begin to piston

the atrium sprinklers tuft and spray

for 5 allotted minutes on a pruned hedge

and the small leaves grow wet and black green

like love