The man downstairs fumbles for a tune
on the piano. It is exactly like that, this need
to birth a poem, except
it is nothing like that. Fire
in the lungs. Sadness louder than wind.
Happiness breaks windows
& beauty combs
through a box of old bananas
for a set of lips by an iron door
under a streetlamp stinking of piss.

We are not alone in the twilight.
We were not alone on the bridge. The poem
cannot help remembering the man
asleep with his sores in the sun
while we rode by. This city is full of flowers
and cars that yield -- it could become too easy
to forget what matters
if you are white. You could almost
lose your antennae. You could almost
become a sleek arm of the machine
with invisible skin. You might never know
that your insides show.

The song catches on a flat.
The subway roars its dragon's breath.
Under an absent moon
& a cancer of rooftops
the world is brown. The poem remembers
soil, it remembers
morning, it remembers
a girl with a dog in her arms
sobbing, & a boy
who bites as a form of goodbye.