METROPOLITAN

It's morning and a blue jay
drowns in an ink pond, and the woman
across from me is talking to her dead son
as if he were plain to see; we are all guests
in this humid bus, like strange cats nesting
in hay filled barns, flowers defying all odds
no one has the gall to pull, and the city is dense,
but sometimes you get a glimpse
of the natural world pounded by skyscrapers,
freeway smog, chemicals overflowing gutters,
old men telling stories of their young machines
as they smoke cigarettes and drink whiskey
with their dirty guitars, and the delicate
things they tuck away, pounding their chests
with enough juice to forget their hearts,
too weak for intimacy, afraid of mockery,
as their children rebel from heteronormativity,
and I rinse my eyes with all the tears
that should have fallen on these sledgehammer
days melting asphalt, swinging into concrete walls,
playing a dusty piano to an audience
just as caged, and a haggard thing stares
at me with pity; my head lowered in shame,
all these damn books wasted; veins thick
with enough coffee and bread to feed Paris,
payday's celebrated with garlic and rice;
all this talk of cash, stocks, retirement,
is maddening beyond gunshots at midnight,
and kids are living in rusty cars, filling parking lots,
some have chosen to steal from the already poor;
I think of the woman carrying buckets on her head
in a war-torn desert hot enough to steam water,
and a brilliant pig laughs, unwise to the slaughter;
I shove it all down, as the cranky door opens
to a street known for hot slugs and metal sticks;
construction workers are having a go at booze,
ugly apartment block is being propped up,
and new recruits are working stained corners
unaware of the burials, unaware of the graves;
I sold out to big education long ago,
but sometimes return to my childhood
and remind myself where it began,
having progressed a single jog
towards the ocean.