City Center,

Nagahama



You may hopefully survive, [1] as the swift-moving
pedestrian, [2] as the Shiba-Inu standing
in that irrigation ditch, on leash, or maybe [3]
just by thinking of her now and then (the small
man on the bank, splintering rope from fist
to collar), maybe. But here, at City Center,
nothing was so much so unalive as the wooden woodpecker
nailed to a tree, as its neighbor, the limping crow’s,
lonesome affection-- We have met before, but who
are you? we all cawed in unison, though no one was
or is ever around to hear. I peeled the rough bark
from my thigh. I laid the pieces in sharp X’s
on the battered gravel (three owls landed, sleep-eyed).

You may come and stay, [1] as the buried constellation
behind the lake, [2] as a set of teeth worth keeping. And if you
come, come to stay: Wrap anything in a T-shirt
and you may use it as a pillow. We have met before. But here
at City Center there is no way of knowing
anything anymore-- at least no more than we already know
how awful things happen innocently enough,
that the dog in the ditch is no longer moving,
or that distance in nanograms equals a color I’ve never seen.