Commute #2
With smallness; with the ritual scratch
of the aperture, the suctioning force of the wound,
the day pressed itself into the hours, a glance shot
askew and wrapping against the rocky shore
that breaks the water open like an oil.
The violas saw against the clatter of the train; I bedevil
the memorandum with sudden regrets; I stand big
over the laminated question; and then
on the street the day-moon slides behind
the nylon fibers of my windbreaker; I watch as
a woman sweeps all her hair to one side
and presses her ear into a stranger’s feeble voice.
This is the illumination burned, the novel unstopped—
this is the landscape vibrating against a tendered
belief; the estimated body, the contusion of image.
I have absorbed the commercial blessing:
sweet, ruinous, enough to push the earth
continuously under. So be it, the traffic grunts,
while the corner lies flat for the precious minutes
and the heart turns over like a piece of paper.