The Brooklyn Rail

Tomorrow Somehow

We had a mutual crush on riot dog

but now he’s dead    poisoned by police

Our movements

became all about breath when the refinery blew up

so maybe today is

a day to rest on the sofa until

our heart has had enough

Who will be able to live here if all of this is over   Hmmm

If money is a tale we tell

I stall w/ a stutter to somehow postpone the end

I’ve been told this isn’t real

that I have fetish for memory

For loving

the armpit

I’m assailed

as some kind of olfactory perv        Fair enough

The tongue is chaffed       Visions keep getting all clouded

City of holes  City of boxes  City of

maw    We slowly get digested

One sundown

sex workers smashed into hello world

to seize designer handbags

Serves the host planet right for leaving them there

empty & on display

Are we fitter or

sicker as time goes on

our lot filled w/ flowers & weeds

We bitch but soon

they’ll just be seen on the internet once construction’s

done

Cry in the sun

Piss at the moon

Sulk under overcast skies

Get it out

bc trapping spit in a handkerchief

makes you homesick for what’s already been swallowed

In lieu of staying out of the rain we’re left

w/ revenge so

I didn’t much care

when the realtor got stabbed   so many pockets of hell

yet to be developed

That said

god & the devil or boring  We don’t have to

know the world to know what it’s not  What we call us

doesn’t need to be explained

when we
chew through

or arch our backs when grabbed just right by the scruff

There’s no thing wrong w/ wanting more

time for long shot bets

to someway maybe transcend this

Remember the t-shirts

I miss the old philly
defender valparaiso
where y’at

two seen in person one

only seen in a dream

Born here     Die here

The bank doesn’t care as long as we’re gone in five years

A friend w/ eight fingers tells a joke

about loss &

meanwhile yo there goes a radical poetry reading

in another gentrified school

Back in line it’s time to

talk at the window The teller says goodbye by saying

be safe

w/o an idea of what

that might look like     I demand to speak to

whomever

told them to say that

Sitting in a comfortable chair I wait for a boss & plan on

what I’m going to say  It’d go something like

I never left home when I went

to other cities Far from birth I rode

a bicycle on what looked

like a scape of the moon

Past debris piles &

graveyards of brass & woodwind

instruments my lungs failed

All I could do is transcribe ward

stories & document systems

on what still was common ground

Then we were in a valley

by the sea lousy w/ strays

or writers We stared

out the window of a nobel

laureate where he’d watch

ships come & go After that

bus fare went up so

carabineros put out the eyes

of children Punished are those who

dare to peek into

tomorrow’s museum of memory

I’ll say I’m back & despite my

demeanor I do have

a care in the world  This is

where I eat & sleep w/ weirdos

& you can’t say resist w/o rest

I know I know it’s not really true

but it’s close I get that takeover

does not respect genre but

this is the way I talk I want to sit

a while I demand to stay

On second thought

why waste my breath  I just want the service fee back

Yeah we were dogs & we ran

together but then came the noise

ordinances whenever we did

what dogs do

Dust bathing won’t get the parasites off

so we need to decide          whether yesterday’s fiction

today is true crime af

Our phones know

about us &

the shit

we talk so

let’s cut

the flowery

language

Do we want to be naked

if the sheriffs come          Who will feel more

vulnerable

They have battering rams          We

know where weapons are hidden

For all

the gifts of grim clairvoyance

we storyboard

a defiance of literal endings

Nothing’s over until the until is over

I write obituaries for strangers

so I can get to know them                    New love is nice & keeps

me from thinking about

the former lives of friends

Some of them died while

others fed the ducks & got lost

Books again are my BFFs

I’m on

my third or fourth death I’m not sure

Sounds low          I know

but once I was caught in a basement bed w/ an acrobat

Fingers traced wear-marks from whiskered jeans

while we laughed about

landing safely         Netted in

a crumpled sheet they & I back birded into

shapes of recollection

Time began again           The floor

became decider once we

surrendered interest in cocktails on the roof

For so long you & I thought we were outside

but were really just

between buildings

Lessors say that          everything changes

which seems true          but we know a few things too

like this rain is torrential

protest selfies can’t save us

& animals live on in our cells

All is well for now & right now

the roof doesn’t leak

I can still be unwholesome while surveillance is everywhere

& now

there’s no force that

can keep me

from idling

beneath your arm

It won’t be clean          but tomorrow

we’ll breathe         & remember the future

like we’ll do the day after that