over and

This room hasn’t seen itself in a month,

Mouth open with no curtains staring down

At trash in the street. Caught on the edge of

Two cities, the wind screws its

Face into snow while I work.  Make space

Mimic the soul, make the soul make

The soul. Where do memories go

To collide with whiskey slithering

Down the throat, hushed confessions

Of desire terrible and falling on deaf ears?

I am not the one you’re looking for.

Angel’s harp on the one, the one I am not

In any shape to be getting on here--

When you’re drunk don’t hitch, like a child

Stay still in the store of whirring toys,

Know someone is coming to get you.

But out here, west Philadelphia rows

Going down to the hospital noone knows about,

Past the church with the red doors

And the church with the neon signs

And the house with vacuum cleaner advertisements painted

On its ankles that now is a drug store--

When the city grunts and groans and heaves

And keeps giving birth to kids in braids overflowing

Polka-dot tanktops, and lean bodies surging out of beaters

Crashing over each other and hitting each other with cellphones,

And a loud sax hiccupping over sissing sissing sick sicking

It should be known I am not the one. I’m

Starting to know it too.