snaptrap

one approach was the christ
route like a clothespin you
squeezed the legs to split
the head into wings—the oldies
wore thorns to keep the birds
off and that’s why they’ll never
leave the juke box for cleaner
bars—will i ever fall in love
w/ a poor girl? a paper snow
flake off the smokeeter with
a sticker—ignorance is censor
ship—hangs like an eye that
won’t see a future stripped
to dusk and tapped, a stick
figure dancing away like a
spider w/ its keys as thought—
wknd shifts a must, beer
knwldge a plus. that’s me
getting away. i’m all right at
letting myself be used. you?
i get it from the statue we’re
meant to be when we grow
up THAT ALL TRAVELERS HERE
MAY REMEMBER THOSE OF
THE PA RAILROAD WHO DID
NOT RETURN from the war
to hang your coat on, for
example. halfthoughts make
bank on the doubletake
but i’m in it for meaning, so
no, i can’t love everyone.
it’s 3:15 east
            east
            one
            hand
            exactly
            a train
            a you
takes the river’s pulse back
to city hall, takes its dog on
to a self, to think of dad sick
and get sad imagining talking
to h about it who i can’t spell
out, even here each step a letter
from the hush hush of the hole
the dog sees out of, a window
in a face flown up like a kite
from the throat, inarticulate,
mine maybe and the many
reasons i’m not a cop, not a
body stiffening into red rope
no clock red rope no clock forty-
one to forty-five and the rich
laughing at all the fire, all the
playgrounds to name after