nothing seems real; not that it has ever been
but the seeming, too, has slipped away from
my little, tinny hands. tinkering.
what is at all left, survives and waits perilously
in the cracks of our self-construction.
the trees that we protect, selectively
grace the Raritan. their reflection, bright and stinging,
covers up the hollow plastic shores.
The black birds, rolling under bridges on the
Parkway; a man, calling up every one of those
unverified fears–
I realize he is crazy. Just a man
who finds in himself a civilization.
But the most real things always happen when he drives.
A wooden stove in the basemet,
tax exemptions, business ventures
wrench apart the tear in the fabric of the black, black universe
a millimeter, a syllable at a time. Meteors the size of
Monmouth County.
The black birds, the yellow leaves,
their reddish spume, or maybe berries.
So what does it matter?
The population might live on
but the population–Humanity–
it never thought of you.
These grand illusions never included anything
but a pantry underground,
a shivering imagination that will fall
to death as quickly, as quietly
as you.
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