Blue Street
I only want enough quiet to read by
Silence that I can see in
Pale light washes all the color
From my skin like paper ash
Grey blood through my charcoal heart
Hostile buildings spit lamp luster
My eyes stinging I rise and pace the decks
My knees debate the insistence of gravity
As my spine longs to press cold metal
A shadow squawks over the black water below
Shadows drag men to the edge of decency
If my mind could push them into the bay
To put an end to the vulgar uproar
My scruples would be tested
Windows shine like apprentice stars
And surrounding stars applaud
Make it enough
In the morning I walk the blue street
Tile chips fleck the black top
Like splinters of fractured day in night
People make sounds as they pass me invisible
Their implications lost on me
The others hear the sounds and know their meaning
They smile because they like knowing it
Or they laugh or just look on and care
A white-haired man bends over the sidewalk
Pushing leaves toward the street
Sun pours through a frosted glass canopy
The pavement is soft as warm butter
And the old man glows like disembodied joy
Wisdom stems from his pores
Breaks through the seems of his doorman’s jacket
Sprouting in the filtered light like fountain grass
Make it enough
A side street carries me on its bending back
Archaic craft sit in patient abandonment
Waiting dutifully by narrow staircases
Winding curves twist from me any sense of place
Of where I am going or where I might land
Slanting walls stamp out the distances
I rise and fall with the assertion of the street
I am lazy and unashamed
I want nothing asked of me
I ask everything to happen to me
To be proud is to miss the point
When I give there is no charity in it
My passions are unforgiving of doubt
The wind blows and I remember gentleness
Trees stand up and tell me to reach
Children sing and I believe in the connection
Make it enough
I’m talking to no one but myself.
