Like a Best Western elevator
levels us flat
to glimpse this dark
& brief lobby
after the stretch cables pull us
& let us run to an edge,
a rubber tourniquet returning
our heavy flesh swelled
from its cut off high.
We are acknowledged by the ushering
of us out...
blank & open
speaking to the numbered buttons,
the circles of burns rippling
deep into a dense cherry wood.
Eventhough moving through
these city streets like fuses
like a lithograph of hearts...
we still try patterns
for some door.
Where an ancient face, flying
above the fields of Ohio you'll see
its forehead carved out, like someone
flattened your nose, crushed your skull.
Where destroying the familiar
becomes an amulet of breath.
It's not in the weather; the winds
lighter & warmer, before a first October
chill hits, the way a mother
kissed her young.
And those
who make it easier, childlike
in deception, Poodles
stepping out into swimming clouds.
Heads bouyed
above the waters.