Steve Dalachinsky (Manhattan, New York): "Invisible Ray #28 (Hurricane Katrina)"

Six spots
then three
and out—
I think he meant five or
ten (imagination (is

summer
scaffolding itself around
the coming fall

it’s the first three-day holiday
that I’m not glad to be having off

Donald is already stacking firewood
in his head
to verify a life
still lived,
his hands,
lungs,
a labor of patience,
his birthday soon to be behind him,
again
barbequed—

later the small reddening puffs
of clouds will slowly make their way
across the sky between buildings,
where the music will drench my hot, tired
soul, as “…pity divides the soul
and man unmans,”
as sorrow for others drowns
deep within my heavily lined pockets—

this weekend
I will collect part of the money
owed me,
buy a set of colored pencils
and a fifty-cent belt
off the street,
its memories
will immediately sift through my nostrils
like all the quinine ever used to cut dope—

tonight I will dream
that I’m being hoisted
away from polluted water,
death,
flowers,
friends,
governments,
rats,
rabbits,
prisons,
and pigs—

no more dirty laundry for a while,
or poisoned glass gloves,
my feet dangling safely above
the filth—

when I wake,
I will paint onions on my garlic,
snapshot the damned picture
for posterity,
kiss Precious Slaughter good morning,
rescue the bacon,
ignore the gallows
and the hearses,
and armchair the good weather
and the birds—

© Steve Dalachinsky, September 20, 2005