Ours is a Junkyard Romance
I am a natural creature,
A spiny toad.
In my state, I am
Confused by stoplights,
And distracted by bright, synthetic things.
Or.
I am a machine, I’ve been told.
My oiled parts are to move this way, or that.
My thoughts turn outward like the gradual leaf of a succulent.
The park is a zoo,
Sad, wild things being stared at by sad, dying things.
One of them twitches their tail.
Somewhere, on the side of the road,
A bush levitates with invisible birds,
And the small, beaded green, unnamable parts
hush.
I’m not sure
How I am different in any way,
From the mad man rattling his bottles and smearing his paint on the detritus the
Great Vacuum has sucked in:
Mailboxes, automobile parts, pipes, nails, splinters.
