if the shadow staggers,
there must be a man in it
trying to get back to his love
through the networks of barbecue.
At dusk, he massages its rectum
with a swingset, he pulls
a white cat--fluff
on a pleased skeleton--
out of its mouth.
There are paths along the sides
of nearby rivers that run
much faster than the water.
From them you can look over ferns
like a god of very small things
and watch the sports field turn
into a vortex of too many crayon
colors, grass melting in triangular areas.
On an invisible picnic table
whose presence you're aware of
someone of indeterminate sex is banging
the strings of a guitar
with a long flimsy twig. You are
their hairdo, or a frog, there are
factories turning into dust; workers
are now wanderers, of streets that have
no business. Some former enemy
has been the only one busy,
turning certain bricks
into certain flowers.