Gray flagstone steps, mean staggered discard graves
on which engravers botched a line or date,
or split the granite's flaw; a stream-cut groove's

Charlie’s eye was hurt bad and a
spider web of red blood
was dripping from his left face and

Zara Vanities, What do they see in each other?
It is the “soon” and “better” got them.
Feeling 'little quicker, new: A drama

In his memoirs, Ehrenburg a recognized arbiter of taste in the Soviet Union speaks enthusiastically about the Twenties. He calls that period “the era of poetry,” contrasting it with our times

The rats want what we have. They come at night and scratch
in the kitchen, the pantry, looking for a way in. Most nights
they only get at the bin below the sink. Leave them alone,
North says, but I keep jamming steel wool into cracks. Our
place is saggy plywood shelves, couches found on corners,
tables made from crates and pallets—whatever we can’t push
in our sales. We’re not actually moving, but we throw a
moving sale every couple months. Fuck a yard sale. A moving
sale makes people hungry.

The Grand Am’s window rolled down
but it was too dark out to see in:
a hand waved me over, a voice asked
if I wanted to make some quick cash
standing right where I was standing
for the next ten minutes, simple as that.
Just stand here? I said. Simple as that,
the voice said, and the hand stretched out

I watch a feeble man in over-large clothes sliding his feet
                across the terrazzo floor of the concourse, each foot
                no more than four inches. The slip, slip on the brown

Trees rehearse
the gestures of fire.
“This is how we will burn,”

Leaves when she wants, sorry bitch, 
Said the white man, presuming to judge. 
His mustache hid flakes of the itch,

My nephew stands at the door. I pretend to be
asleep but it’s no use. “Uncle,” he calls and I
feel that identity wrenched out of my tired nerves.