Inside Your City

One at a time,

You surmount those numerous dents and shoddy patches,

With tear-stained digits, you turn the wrench on a disfigured bolt

Hiding in this secluded garage

To repair what you cannot do without

Leaking vulnerability as you knit along your split.

Your sight refracts in prisms

Raining a cataclysm of colors in snow globes,

The mundane wallpaper pulls you through the rib cage,

And the bricks absorb you in their gaps,

Burying your fading essence in termite cartons.

Cruising down the paved asphalt

You hold out your hat

To catch fireflies, dandelions, and shards,

Would you be so sharp if you weren’t broken?

You prefer solid black against the setting sun

Because there are features to hide,

The hanging receiver oscillates with a beep

Carefully tuned to be out of reach

You watch over your brethren, between sleep and awake,

Polishing a trophy you never had.

There’s an endless freefall in you,

Trudging under the chandelier of distant night lights,

A flying ivy leaf of fountain blue,

Whose coniferous edges run vein to vein,

Parachuting on your prickly beard.

The intervals of your leisure are so humongous,

Say something to me

Or do not,

There is never time for what comes after.

Flip the switch, turn the sign,

Still, you peek from your room,

That someone, that I will look behind the closed,

At that unbolted door,

And come inside.