city

1.
i’m going to stick a chrome pipe
in my culo
so people will think i’m an escalade
and maybe look at me when i walk by

2.
the stone embedded in the pavement
holds a trace of everyone who’s walked there

my feet have never touched it
i float everywhere and i don’t know
the ground below me

3.
jimmy’s deli
once owned by jimmy nordstrom
now owned by virapa patel
still sells butter for six dollars a pound
but at least his cigarettes are cheap

4.
the neighborhood bar
is a gentleman’s club
aka strip joint
and the entertainers
aka as vicki
alice and
the other vicki
change faces every so often
leaving their names behind
clumped on the floor

who knows what animals they were
in their past lives
perfect in their camouflage
or leaving tails behind them
as they fled

5.
if this city were a banana leaf
i’d cover myself in it
and drowse in the heat

walking down a street past asian markets and
suddenly this city is a banana leaf
but now i don’t believe i could sleep here

something there is here
that doesn’t love
me

i press my hands to the walls
of the thrift store and think
of the worn jeans inside
that hold the forms of past owners
men and women who shucked them off
in familiar places before familiar faces

not everyone gets naked in the city

some of us walk ten inches above the stones
dressed in someone else’s clothes
smoking butt after butt
jealous of the running lights and huge rims
moving obvious and rude
past the nameless in the night