Young People
O, people, the sky surely doesn’t slip and creak.
In winter, the snow creaks, the sky only shivers.
Splashes. Birds are like velvet affixed to velvet.
Vallejo developed a thesis on how to leap off the metro
so the sidewalk doesn’t ruin his heels. Did he drive his limbs farther
than the rails? Would the sky unwind like a rope if
we wound it like a rope around metaphors and lambs?
Ok, let’s say the sky will never get busy.
But are people thus louder, quieter?
Is this worker building the road being guided?
And who are the whale, the dog, the cat? Glue for the young
of the whale, the dog, and the cat? The skeleton of St. Augustine,
just the colors of a patch? Young people wag again and again.
Then they grow old and die and, whether they gaze
at the wagging of the living or not, eventually only steal time from us.
This desk would fall apart in every way if
curious eyes crept into it like chisels.
Time would stop being circular and they would bump into it,
connected like an amen.