The sidewalks are wobbling in the god-awful heat.
        Ninety-eight in the shade,
Where there is shade, as New York lies locked under
        Layers of high pressure

In the living room of the trailer, the father of the woman
I love calls the family into a huddle.
Dinner is over, the charcoal is ash on the grill.

After the sporty dolphin show
you might wander down the dimmed aqua stairs
into a darkness they have cut windows

The troubled entrepreneurs of evening—
the palm-readers, the Mexican bracelet salesmen,
the girl who dances on a sheet of tin—

Before you turn your anger against a friend,
           Be circumspect, recite the alphabet—
                 Backwards, if you must.

The faintly digital click of the overhead fan
                    stroking what was left of the dark
           had finally given way to a rooster alarm

Deliver boat
with mirrored oar
off veneer avenue.

In the postmodern world
the sequel is always superior

replace the narrative
with another
form of narrative

Shy defiers of the existential world,
you draw your veil across the unpleasant,
then the head turns away, the body turns away,