Timothy Ree

Blood from the showerhead
                                               or rusty water—hard to tell
                       in the early blue.

                                         ·   

On the train
            a man reading a Bible—
                                                  its cover a brown camouflage.

                                         ·    

The blonde who got on tall
                                    at Parkside—with sunglasses,
                       no ring.

                                         ·     

I'm chasing a coffee napkin down the street, past a hydrant
            painted stars and stripes—
                                                       this early, this much to bear.

                                         ·  

Someone this hour, in this city
                                    is just as drunk—puts a lit cigarette
            in his coat pocket.

                                         · 

In the elevator
            to feel like meat in a freezer—soon the flies,
                                                                         the children.

                                         ·    

No—
            the room crowded with squirrels, each one
                                                                         completely still.

                                         ·    

Now a lesson on metaphors: soon
                                                       they will all be mixed—
            I am the gate, you are the branches . . .

                                         ·     

Once on the sidewalk
                                    we were mugged by falling acorn—
            one of us stabbed with a beak.

                                         ·     

There, not the stolen wheel, the fallen chain—
                        but the good frame left hanging
                                                                        on the iron arch.

                                         ·     

In the empty square my way home,
                                   a phone vibrating on a stone chess table—
            sound and riddle of our lives.

                                         ·     

Now for the local
            or the express—the express to the local back
                                                                            one stop.

                                         · 

Someone this hour, in this city
                                                 is kneeling—another
                                                                                     receiving.

                                         ·

To scroll down the glow—
                                                 the list
                                                             of useless names.