You have walked all day the length of streets,
cataloged anything of importance that has been
here before. Tide at the seawall, the cadence
of wind, poems moving in. Church bells chime.
A car starts. Some stranger remarks the brilliance
of sun. Palmettos bow to the weight of air.

You walk until your legs say sit down. Enter
a cafe. The day blows in on door hinge reeds.
You eye the sky so bold a blue, a breathy
blinding blue, you think someone will steal
off with it, frame it in the coarse of sailcloth
for a windowless wall. The register chings.
The phone rings. Metal scoops ice.

The room lights up. You read over someones
shoulder a late edition. Same sex couples marry
in San Francisco. A female astronaut on Mir.
Hyakutake in view, stars spill from the gourd
of dream, do what they please. Poets sort sheaves,
track second thought verse in fine point notes.

A man joins you at your table. You have met
this man before in Pittsburgh, Paris, Charleston.
He buys you coffee, wine, brown sugar pie
in exchange for conversation about his stock
acquisitions, the travels seaside, paintings of sky.
The rooms dizzy spirit dances with nerve.

Poets on cue cross the stage. A quivering heart
turns over words, delicate as new shoots on spring
bulbs. A waitress at the cash box sorts checks,
counts the stiffs, searches pockets hoping she
can make it up. Breath beads the window
in a blur. Humming birds circle feed.

You have not imagined this. Sweat glistens the brow,
and hand a tremble an old mans voice cracks like
a schoolboys. A girl in red, tattooed and pierced, reads
fire between her legs, a passion for learning as if its
by heart. A boy behind whispers white trash, then relieves
himself in a dozen public couplets. Cadets chuckle
the backdrop. You wait for a clearing in the sound.

You think you could inhabit all these voices all
at once, move inside them like babies about to be
born. You are up to read. The eye quivers, breath
starts. The room takes on a new night chill.
The register rings, door swings. You see the girl
has gone, her scarlet petallike stain left signing
the lip of her cup. A sky dark moans at the glass.