How could something so rote,
so written, find time to surprise?
Niche of cliché, nemesis of fresh,
yet there it is again, lording it over the
firing dust, silhouettes of trees...
Never agreed to be extras, never think of
themselves as frames, never thought a thing
except in this drowsy context, which
morphs into heartfelt syntax, scares that
cynic heart you worship straight.

It’s not that you want to stand up there
(you do), it’s that it stands you up
in an uncomfortable cold that’s always
right now, on a bike, on a bike path
pressing down, beside a highway suddenly
tragic without the pointless imagined
lunar road signs... panting over
spinning wheels, which have never
in your experience seemed ancient
or orbital, though they are now as
surely as they won’t be tomorrow.

Maybe it speaks to childhood: last one
on the moon’s a rotten egg, lost morning,
poor reflection of what happened here
just 21 seconds ago, right here beside
you, and bounced back. Wrong? Sure.
Terracentrically incorrect. Light from
that grey eye could only be the fireball itself.
Except for us, concerned with all those things,
thinking wastes: hacks and demons, the
drowned and the saved, glad dogs still
digging all these deep hours into night.