traffic noise ground and air on the sidewalk outside
the Schnitzelburg coffeeshop
the song of a conversation not in English – a light, stale breeze, coffee black
and blackberry muffin warmed
the door dash driver, twice returned
with the IT’S ALL GOOD font license
plate
August cicadas yodeling death ballads from the trees
the neighborhood tweaker shuffles, waits
chews his fingernails, pops pimples
on his knees outside the old man’s house
next door. On his more put together days
he puts on the makeshift fuckboy,
tries to erase the age in his face
with turned ’round baseball caps
and intentionally ripped jean shorts
wearing paper thin: thin as what ties
together any hallucination, only to fade, to die
a civilization decivilizing — burning in August
like unwatered tomato plants,
this dream dead on the vine
this alarm sounding too close to time
rumble of thunder, cicadas sing
o summer rain: humidity’s promise kept
— for once — when lightning flashes
we lie and try to tell ourselves
it falls the same on the unjust, too
