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.