Dead bird blown down the road
as light as its feathers,
the cops rousted a guy
and hung him over the river
on my way up to
where it was all happening
making me paranoid
with their gestapo patrols
so I try my power of observation
on the swans, majestic
in the sun,
and ready to kill any duckling
that gets in their way.
then I saw you,
on the theatre steps,
foaming at the mouth
putting sweat from the pores
of your face
like a steelworker,
or a chaingang rockbreaker,
in fact you were on the lam
and when you walked toward town
with your maybe girl,
shrinking imperceptibly with each step,
I noted that scene
more than any others,
despite the summer crowd
t-shirts and American shorts
movie star shades
erect nipples
and burning red shoulders,
I hung back among it all
and watched unknown,
being watched myself
by a subjective eye somewhere,
maybe a second-storey window
where sat someone
slitting the skin of a
pomegranate,
the knife dripping with juice