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