Totem

I want to forget the shapes of cars
and curving off ramps that get clustered
by the desperate trying to make it
where they’re late to in the morning
when the radio gets by through barely talking.
What day will the insects die out this year
if they manage to? They pierce our crumbled
bounties with their mandibles like scythes
that cut the grain out of the farmland.
Although, that isn’t really how we do it anyway.
I used to think my future was the present
I could witness on my elder’s faces
down the line from me where everything
is boring since they’ve seen it.
However, now I’m not so sure
they ever looked at me past the layers
in their sunglasses.
The way those totem poles all talk to us
would make you think they could replace
the rain with bird shit if they wanted to,
but they never do, so I think it’s time
we dare them.
Busy downtown intersections where the lights
are breaking down again and flickering
so randomly no one knows if it is their turn
to hit the gaps that form when all
is working properly.
A cook gets fired halfway through a dinner
rush because she bled into the food
she was the master of by cutting way
to recklessly. Keeping up with everything
is so distracting, sometimes, it’s hard to
even feel like you are there, like there’s a river
slow and murky that was once so clear.