july reaching's still to august,
whose days in general be more modest,
and september blowths the future cool,
june's present's past's hot-headed fool.

across the grass, the highrise
becomes the horizon,
as i lie on my back in the park,
and the line that separated land from sky
runs now vertically on
through evening into the dark.

a hawk without feathers,
skin, hollow bones,
its avianness severed by the wickedness it knows,
it sits upon a house,
the house that's always stood,

(by the cave with the painted walls,
after the massacre
     of the neanderthals;
by the agora, where the voting took place,
     in sight of which they signed
     constitutions
     and other contracts in black typeface;
by the workplace;
by the banks;
downtown,
     between the metal-glass towers,
     footpath from it
     to the corridors of power)

out of time, it is: a Wormwood,
where men gather to unaffix themselves from the good.
the hawk has eyes of malice,
it watches as you come to the door,
inside, it smells of money, might and phosphor
us.

of what's a house built,
tatami mats without
figures, ghosts within walls,
haunted by the absence
of anyone of substance who calls,
ozu, can you hear me? in
these rooms of noh occupants,
transients staying only a night,
staging a performance for no audience,
except me, turning slowly to dust,
late spring in tokyo twilight,
floating weeds in an empty house,
by a projector's light.

a man leans as i leave
the office building—against it,
dark and young,
his face has emptied
of expression, and innocence
has fallen away like drying sand from a stone in the sun,
i do not look at him,
in passing,
out of respect, i tell myself,
but know: out of fear
of connection i do not speak to him.
next morning, he is not
there is only a mound of sand,
which, in my name,
the city workers and the wind sweep and carry away.

early eve, an august day,
the shadow's long but
end of summer still far away,
the heat is less
than it was yesterday,
the sun is less by then-until-today,
but already I am burying it all away,
nightfall echoes,
people,     on their way home,
that's the way it all goes.
early eve, an August day,
a warm wind blows
life down the hallway of the choices we have made,
it used to be may and may it be
may again someday