The End of All Things


What if the end of all things
was really
the end?

Of all things –
of stars
and stones and waves,

now cleansed and pure
after centuries –
of insects

and rivers and colored sand?
What if the lights
went out in the eye

of the crow?
What if oceans ceased,
mountains turned to glass

with crystals
sharp as knives?
What if they disappeared

along with sky, with air
with space
until only waves

remained, ancient
radio signals
random, broken fragments
of sermons
and ballgames
right-wing rage, pop songs

operas, and, somewhere
near the end
a snippet of twelve bar blues?

South Street


Out all night, and now strange
silence in the dim-lit hour before
dawn, lower Manhattan, before
another brutal day clicks on.
Already heat rises, rippling off
sidewalks. Rail thin woman jogs
along South Street, pony tail
flapping, pulled through the slit
in her Yankees cap. Her pink
and gray running shoes slap
against pavement. An old man
limps behind a rusty mutt
who snuffs at caged trees along
the boulevard. Buildings vanish
in a low sky. Lone city bus
rumbles uptown past parked cars
and thin neon signs of closed delis
and cafes, then accelerates, smoking
by the curved shelter where no one waits.





On Division Street
 

Even now in December sleet, streets fill
with people climbing back into ordinary lives.
Slowly they slide into darkness, every face
a mask dripping icy rain. They walk in a new
kind of shadow wrapped in invisible clouds,
eyes down, away from symbols burnt
onto building walls. Some carry packages,
others brush fingers, barely touching as wind
splatters their coats with wet and cold.
Most trudge alone, gripping their phones,
or plowing through the day with hands
shoved into pockets, shoulders round
as boulders and as hard. They speak softly,
or they are silent as trees without leaves
or birds. They greet no one, guard their spaces.
Anyone may be waging war.
Sirens wail down the slick avenue, as cars
splash to the curb, then roll out into traffic
again, their movements heavy, obedient and slow.





Fremantle Market, Sunday Afternoon


Sunday crowd in the market flows this way
and that, shoulders squeezing past, never
touching, always the same faces perched
on the same craning necks, past rows
of peppers, onions, potatoes, grapes and
apples piled in their pyramids, heat palpable,
a presence with a body rubbing against all
the bodies, staining every back, and bare
legs moving but caught in this never changing
throng. Ice cream cones drip onto the same
wrists. A man plays something that looks
like an upside-down wok; another chants
poems or spells or prayers into the sun.
Here there is food from India, China,
Thailand, Japan; there are opals and scarves
and carved rings made from bone.
Everyone weighs something on a dangling
scale, so much per kilogram, so much for
a head of lettuce or a great, green bunch
of beans or Brussels sprouts. Here is a man
with a whistle and a sleek, gray dog, a woman
doing handstands in the yard, walking on her
fingers, which dig into the asphalt. A small girl
plays etudes on a piano while her sister sells
pastries and bread. The afternoon lingers
forever, then suddenly fades.
From the Indian Ocean, a fresh wind,
and sun burns the water crimson and purple
and black as ash. Night seeps slowly into the sky.
Streetlights come on, but few and dim.
Above, to the west, darkness bursts, clotted with stars.