The Wake

Passed the market today.
Lettuce, milk, tofu
Mid February - it’s raining, filthy snow.
Dabs of drab left over grass
Grey splotched twigs, perfect slush.
Perfect wakes of half-froze
Water nip my pants, threads trailing.
The almost liquid like slush,
wears a cape like the trees and shrouds
its green vibrancy like a boxelder’s insensitive tans.
It is my shoelaces, my mind
that feels only slush
apparitions and capes.

There is the couch.
Stale cigarettes and the absence of oranges, the taste
of one too many chocolates.

Beneath the snow were scraps of chalk-marred cardboard, ruffled feathers,
bleeding headlines.
Our breath, the unusual air.
The sky was like bleached tin foil, soaking for days.

Stepping between the cracks feeling the coarse brown bag.
Slush and shoelaces Yes. I have
forgotten the rest, but the issues and wares, the dairy and bean
that fumble my keys and drops the ketchup I’ve intentionally smashed.
Multiplying red shards settle like a cymbal and I
have forgotten the sound.
I have misplaced the noise.
I know where the broom is.
I go and get it.