The Outskirts

Each day is a threshold of the same dream.
I awake to the clatter of leaves,
a frayed dawn cawing in its wooden cage.
Each day the same street. Each street
the same name. Surfacing from a cut bank
the sketch of your face—or only my reflection
streaking the glass, a train
tunneling through morning fog.
I skirt the park into the city-blocks.
Green glass and bottle caps
collect along the curb, newspapers
tumble under blusters of boots.
I walk with crooked wind
under thick bougainvillea,
call back horses from the corridors of hours
then climb to the meadow and lie on my back
as the old men tiptoe among the bones.
Below the traffic is a crushing river.
Somewhere between wanting to be found
and not wanting to be found,
I bury my hands, turn in the grass.
Late light filters through a canopy
of leaves. The greening
hills seal themselves,
shut around the graves.