Prelude

The wilderness we title city; apocalypse of

the season I will never remember -

the high rise I shelter in,

watching a silhouette of a lone man limp 

into disappearance on dim avenues below,

thinking how not unlike myself he is, and then

a random shout careens out in the side streets.

people get hurt in other places.

eager western thunder staggers arrival

pinning chaos and mouths in stoicism and ardor.

late evening opera pours opaquely from another room

and I catch light behind the slightly-opened

door where a woman’s foot spills up and over the claw-foot tub

a hell of worry seducing when the water shifts to silence,

her elegant leg completing its sprawl, all I see 

until the record skips, halls become the cavitation of friction

that kicks pendulums out of rhythm - 

No two of us sleep at the same time.