Alphabet City

I’ve been known
to mistake her words for stars
to infer constellate Ursa, major-minor keys
to unlocked doors, her way-inside-out
she says I cut such handsome figure
falling through her fine-mesh screens

Impossible to escape these cellars
especially when there’s no money
and besides, I’m also broke
down here at the edge of her rotation
with the only hope in sight
inverted on my optic nerve

you’re a bit too dizzy, I’d been told
but oh so right for what I had
in mind, when can you start?

why post-convalescence, if that works for you
I need a moment, a year perhaps
to regroup and re-stench
enough to succeed
this is my notice, all be warned

as you wish so do you not sow
no question you’ve got a lot of reaping
to do

in a backroom slavic casino game
they point the blank at me despite
the hand that shakes so
I bite it before it spills
its feed before it fades
away, weigh
the options are heavy exercised
but that’s what digital’s for, all that wealth
in zeros and ones

why, if I was an electro-magnetic pulse, so help me God, I would . . .
I really would

but wait, I almost forget that for an instant I am
she is too, together we are these days
spilling from the lips of the abyss about us

if only babes could speak they’d advise to hold our tongues
no doubt, with goose-step uncertainty
we contribute to the march of Times
not quite sure how our money, like we
is spent

© Chagall 2014