The Bookstore

Is a bouquet of overripe laundry

Mildewed wet in the back,

And the pages of the books

Are Earl Grey stained;

Thin and sick leaves

With tiny praying hands.

I inhale

Their cattle-prodding spores

Slip-n-slide to my lungs

Carrying in close palms

The words and phrases

JacksonPollocked

On all those lost pages.

            On the Corner

Squats a sausage haus

Its legs are bricked and bending

From all the ham-hocked legs

Darkening its greasy floorboards

With soil mucked and toiled

Sowed by snow-skanked sidewalks

I shake

Those December-soaked boots

Against her unyielding entrance

Splitting open the daylight

From winters early darkness

As my pupils dilate and descend

To the apron-wearing counter man.