I AM NOT A CINEMATOGRAPHER

Winter has grown
Late, intrepid
Profiles momently

Gracing the construction
Barrier with weightless charm, a nearly
Chinless woman flashes me

Her smile, then quickly withdraws it, seeing
That I too am headed
West, I feel as if I stare at women

All day long, which I guess is a product of my being
Alone all night, so down
24th Street I go, casually flitting

From gallery to gallery, Cicely Brown
Surprisingly mute while further
Along I am greeted with a pleasantly ribald

Exhibition of buxom lady pirates, all
The while anticipating the purloined sandwich
In my bag, a thing

Which pleases
Me greatly, as does the birthmark
On the bridge of the nose

Of the girl in the deli
Buying a Diet Pepsi, like I said
I don’t want to die

A sad pervert, but I’m not yet ready
To apologize for the undirected
Throbbing of my peptides, as my annoyance

Grows at the protracted twitter
Of Japanese teenagers making their way
To Madison to shop

And make phone calls and soon
I am mired in the intricacies
Of public space, knee to hand, eye

Taking in a mouth as it talks almost
Disembodied, a woman’s narrow Currinesque
Nose bifurcating the slope

Of her chest, you do not make sense
Of it, of it you make conversation, even
Alone, little interjections

Of desire tippling at the eye’s wet
Scan, I am not like an actor who ends
Up resembling

The characters he’s played, I am not even
A cinematographer wrenching
Beauty from an otherwise

Dumb panorama, I am that dumb
Panorama, the trees, windows
The very avenues themselves and you

Are the camera, both of us
Caught in the dizzying interchange
Of “culture” as

It zooms like an electron
Between our shells, bouncing
Jaggedly, so that

One might run
One’s mouth forever, lips
Flapping like a moth

Full of blood and never pin
It down, if that
Was, indeed, our

Intention in the first
Place, which I think plainly
Mine is not, intention

Being equally dubious in my book, wishing
For things in a vague sort
Of way so as not to be misconstrued

By a capricious god, tearing
Out my hair over the arbitrariness
Of it all, the fact

That you could get everything you ever
Wanted and discover it
To be wrong, or find that you

Aren’t that you anymore, which of
Course you never are, or were, the idea
Of fixing a self somewhat

Like being buried alive, thoughts
Suspended in the stale
Breath of a nail-fashioned space, there’s naught

To do except find something
Difficult and submit
Yourself to it, it’s willful

Suffering you need, preemptive
Blood drawn
From one’s own bulging

Veins, we are constantly on
Trial, our bodies break, our needs
Consume us, I can’t believe

How strange it is to be anything at all.