The body sits, watched
by birds. Some rest found
in the dark palm
of shade. He imagines
the desert
pushed underneath
the largest ocean
which is guiding him,
slowly like the air,
toward an end.

But desert returns
and the dirt is dry within
his hand.

A thing that blossoms from the air:
the air; nothing blossoms
from you. The earth is itself, and fills
its own definition for the eyes
to claim dominion over
progress. Cause-and-effect isn’t
the mind’s sculpture, but the universe’s
movement to the self. The canvas
isn’t marked by the empty; the painting
is without our hands, painting its own
form, and moves us to itself. It is
not ours, but we become it.

Another building jumps
into the terrain, its lights charge
the hollering in the barbershop.
I remember how you hated
those who defended the sanctity
of this place, now you stand there
alongside the protesting.

‘The renewal is eating-up
the neighborhood,’ you say,
‘this is our home,’ but this is no home
for rising. Even when they level
the derelict charm of tenements,
there will always remain those who yell
at the progress of things. You stand firm,
believing in the value of this place
and this life, and you will teach
our child to value the comforts
of squalor. You see me behind a counter
to feed our son, but I won’t see him,
bitter, or worse, in love with this
hole. I’m leaving, but you will always stay–
Fear is your life.

“Behold the fragility
kept within this space.
I used to be the voice
that made their souls,
but behold my fragility,
kept within.”

But no light has been
erased from those eyes
which hover higher
than the muck of living.
Nothing has faded within
this singer, not even the song
shackled to her weakness,
its dying unheard.