And here we linger battling the spleen and feet.
There are lessons in the lonely hours between moonset and morning,
a consistency in the tugs pushing barge loads up and down river.
It’s generally quiet here. That’s what I told
the homeless woman rocking herself on a wharf bench. I’m interactive she called out
imagining I’d ignore her. Did she know
I noticed her pissing behind a bush an hour earlier?
These details don’t matter. These unscheduled details don’t matter
this is where life is here swimming in wet thick air
instinct taking over like the fish we are
dodging West Nile mosquitoes and post-colonial depression.