SUBCUTANEOUS CONCERNS

Ambling down the summer
Midnight streets of New York
One gets the distinct

Impression of drifting between the walls
Of a clammy cave, the lamps
Like masses of bioluminescent

Worms casting orange
Light into the grumbling depths
Beyond the subway

Grates, I know a man
Who quit his job at the greeting card
Factory in St. Paul, a woman

Who saw little animated
Tennis shoes every time she closed
Her eyes, I close

My hand around a fork
And eat saffron rice and black
Beans with jalapeño

Pickled carrots from a Tupperware bowl
While watching the horse
Breaking scene from The Misfits

That purportedly killed
Clark Gable, his stubborn heels
Dug into Nevada’s

Desolate earth, it’s so late
In the history of literature, so shot
Through with older raptures

Which chime dustily
Upon the shrinking bell
Of the West, once

I drove 4,000 miles to realize all
My ideas were still in Ohio
All my kindhearted abominations fed

Into a tiny voltage
Of axons and yet nothing
Compares to the melt

I feel in observation of humanity
Watching NECKFACE’s glory fritter
Away on the roofs

Of the Gowanus Canal, this stunning
Industrial “eyesore” where I used
To walk hand-in-hand with a lady of German

Descent, I know a man
Who was mistaken
For a bear, a town where all

The hamburgers are
Named after chess moves, a depository
In the employee parking

Lot where we’ve buried three Christmas
Trees, tomorrow I shall flash
My thighs upon the river and wed

My friend to a keg but tonight
The subcutaneous
Concerns dawdle unmet

By the dizziness of glee, stray
Cats call out their lust
Or terror or both and it's impossible

To fall asleep.