City Primal: written in honor of the birthday of Mariano Henestrosa 2013

Our entire building hums,
as a beetle does before it takes to the air.
We break bread and give thanks and make things
with such frequency and repetition
that our awareness of time passing
is telescoping inward.

We’ll demand innocence,
but we know the hum,
this static-white-noise
in the field of our mind
is to remind
us that the ratio
of life lived
to life left to live
has shifted
the first of many times.

Climb six flights of tenement stairs
open the hatch to the roof so we
can drink green wine from flea market crystal.
It takes so little work to unhinge
there is little doubt that we are living doors.

We can calculate how concrete makes
geometric shapes between cities.
There is a cold front,
and coats are thin so we
cast a gaze across the skyline,
a play’s curtain.
Audacious, we cut holes
through and peek at the actors.

From the roof of that building
with it’s wild hum
like buzzing wings
we dopplar out
convinced that, tomorrow
we will lift avenues
and blocks
and all
with only our will.