feather

a poem

he the luckless long in tooth
his appetites intact
faded on wheels and seasons
awake and wearily throbbing along
reduplicated veins and shadow
shuttered arches
lilacs on the bored breeze
cars in lines and lots
clouds and recollections, and
his back too strong to sleep

the dogs, the meals
the women in carts and bath tubs
the windowed slips like bookmarks
like oily erasers in littered drawers
a steaming landfill covered in gulls
humped above the horizon
legends stuttering like old neon
stubborn clamors craving for sickness
for a cane and a flat cap
and a stair-step despidida

children change, their redesigns
predictable as needle tracks
the lacks, the lines, and rebates
the broken backs and sandwiches
heavy as a kitten sack in memory
the enemy alert
alertness the enemy
weary rides the wanting wave

oh to dissolve into a fatty soup
withdrawn along a gentle slope
the dusk drawn through him
like a feather