Urbanity

More they occasion groping for themselves than ourselves
cocoon under stretch layer, warm, protect
dragging against my hands, stone of the wilting kills
a moving eremite upward woe motion to his sealed steel
agile, always sleeping through his body
hanging by the heels, quick trips into acute time
from an ever boring simmer to some white wasted history
second crisp night climax, sour, tart bomb,
two death breasts our labeled bygone onyx skin
and I fit in upright, an electric web-backed lotus
a packed meditation rewound resumed to burn
passing with deep-swimming limbs, someone's
preparatory animal
a wheezing hour careful on the droplet's elastic edge
a trump night does break: the suds of landscape
doctor ripe is ready
dramatic, the turfy bread eaten surly like a broken language
of teeth, waits from vision's vacuum, the past lightless food
missed, less sitting, waiting; time has no bearing, my
yellow winds obese or carefree - new stockings by pink cuneiform
scream into two hands toward activity's late shock,
arms sucking the upside-down photographs
what mercies of the strap, and we knew it was water, entering,
switching, snapping, a tap and he flutters away;
delight too long to understand.

copyright Bill Nathan, "AERIAL #3", Washington, D.C., 1987