Kairos

Automatic gates you need
the numbers for before
you even knock on any doors
run their chains along the gear.

Night chills statues
in the city park
where stray dogs
dig and fight
for what they find.

Airplane wings bank
overhead and drop
the drunkards down
back into what
they tried to leave behind.

Girls levitate over
diagonal crosswalks
to different bars
drinking anything sweet
to dance to anything loud.

Endless signs promise
the opposite of nightmares
with disorienting light
and sound.
They ask us to imagine
we are elsewhere
and we pay them to
believe.

A motorcycle crash
takes over an intersection
and the rider’s arms
shake like they are still
holding the handlebars.

A woman in her underwear
lounges on her couch at home
spinning the chambers on a .38
in front of her laptop.
The messages all
begging her for more.

Primetime comes around
and the families all sit down
in separate rooms.
Plastic trashcans line
the edgeless streets for miles
making way for garbage day.

The outer mechanisms
of existence operate
on a policy of unlimited refills.
All the litter in the ditch
out by the graveyard
like confetti for the dead.

The perimeter roads overgrown
with encroaching forest
choke the streetlights to a flicker.
Wild boar running
rampant through the city
fight coyotes for control.

Boarded up clubs
where squatters
spin the disco ball
and smoke pack
after pack of cigarettes.

A mallard destroys
its brother’s wings
and leaves him
there just floating
in a backyard pool
cast out of the migration.

The pricey suit
makes deals no more
and just sits around
bouncing a tennis ball
off the window
in the office
where the view
is so amazing.

All conspiracies collapse
into board meetings
where everyone zones out
daydreaming of long days
in their deepest caves.

An old soldier
burns plywood
in the middle of the street
taking revenge
on all the skating teens
who will miss the ramps
they spent all summer
raising.

A couple awakened
by breaking glass
rushes downstairs
to find the ship
no longer
stuck inside the bottle.

Old cars break down
all the same
windows shattered
rust overtaken frames,
and they claim there
is no other way.

The grandma
getting her first tattoo
has flashbacks of her
summer job piercing
cow ears with a farmer’s son,
wild as a forest fire.

A young builder stands
alone on the 20th floor
with walls in progress
and stares up at the apex
of the crane
knowing he cannot mess
this up again.

The kid at the pinball machine
charts the highest score
surpassing the old masters
but is drowned out by
the chatter in the tavern.

A young girl soaked
in summer mud
buries a peach pit
in her backyard
while her parents
are away.

When the sun gets low
she kneels beside it
and without
expectation prays,
one day it will
take root
and be born.