This particular
shifting of the rain, I am
just in time for it.

Lemon-drop lamp
and its wavering life
reflected in the chai.

Scrawlings, backwards,
in the glass, in the sun,
downtown escalator

Red clouds catching sun,
the hole at Sixth Avenue
dark in minutes.

“Red cells save lives”
reads the bus for the blood drive–
black letters on white.

It’s happened again
masses off the streets, leaving the mad
you’ll notice I’m still here.

Every now and then
the teriyaki restaurant
has room to sit down

She looks so much like
the other one, long ago
flowers in her hand.

Characteristics
of everything, change in winter
a loss of flavor

Christmas Eve, singing,
oh, but it’s only one man
one fragile strange tune.

“BC Entities”
a synthetic urine kit…
who left just the box?

This building, this sun,
I break into a huge grin
and don’t even care.

“I know it’s wrong”–
feeding doughnuts to the gulls–
“But I’ve been hungry, too.”

A twitchy crow
pokes at the glass overhang
winter’s here again.

She will stay with him
“As long as he gives me mine,”
her Disneyland jacket.

Civilization,
so lovely, at least, as that
one flute in the hall.

“Nobody loves me”–
no, actually, it’s just
morning and breathing.