Occurrence 220
Acknowledgments for New Poems in Partly 235
New Poems
Legacy
“Do words just pop
into your head?”
Some may go
unexploded.
–
“Have you thought much
about your legacy?”
I’m a legacy
prisoner.
No I’m not.
–
“What do you call precious?”
The precious doesn’t
get around much
so it stays small.
Or it orbits
the same small
pronoun,
a kid
on a carousel.
“Look at me!”
It fiddles
with itself.
But I’ve got bigger things
to pick up
and put down.
In Front
Tree in new leaf
in front of
a brick building
with narrow
white-wood balconies
slung under panes
of glass
in which a tree
is being
dissected
before an audience
of one,
none,
hundreds.
–
New twigs
do the splits
as I once did
Exchange
City of the future
in which each subway station’s stairs
lead to the ground floor
of a casino/
mall.
–
What counts
is the role
defined for each piece
by a system of rules saying
how it can move,
not the stuff
the piece is made of.
–
In the intersection,
a muscular, shirtless man
with small American
flags tied to each wrist—
so that he looks
like a wrestler—
pushes, no, shoves
then catches a stroller
piled high with plastic bags—
his stuff.
–
City of the future,
where a tramway to the top
of a peak
opens onto
a wax museum
in which
Michael Jackson
extends one gloved hand
Canary
1
Some folks got tortured
by folks
right afterwards
at an obscure
farmer’s market
where
