Primordial

Lights spiral on the sides
of rain soaked buildings,
and I have gotten so much wrong.
Dissociating girls don’t blink
they just stare at the doorway
and listen for footsteps
or doors opened loudly nearby.

Two wire thin pale men
in only winter hats
and boxers dodge
the knife held by the other.
A mom carries a sleeping child
walking all night to reach
the boundary of the city.

It’s not enough for the man
who spent his whole life
putting weight on
in his warping leather chair.
He wheezes loudly, spouting
tiny clouds, dragging trash bags
to the dumpster in the parking lot.

They swing over his head
into the metal container
where the insides squelch
against the inside.
We do not know after 2000 years
how all that soup turned into
something else entirely.