Today I drive my go-to-hell-mobile into the city,
thin lines of traffic zippering together
at the on-ramp, say a couple crafty phrases
with some English put on them.
I bring a certain inward darkness and a certain
inward flare. At Coiner’s scrap-metal yard,
dead industry’s dead heroes bleach out to nothing
I need to talk about. Some days I feel badly
used by this odd business of living. The papers say
the Greeks are reading Schopenhauer.
They don’t report how closely Schopenhauer read
the Greeks. A storm blew out our lights
last night; this morning, a variegation of tintype
& tarnish burnishes the sky-scape. Shimmers.
Ticket in hand, I wait at the cashier’s window like a child
seeking guidance. Inside, a politesse of restraint,
an asynchrony of wishes. I am a man, and not a wreck
of a man. Must mind the particulars, mind
the tare writ on its slip, until I run out of language,
or the language all runs out of me.