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Alone with the riot in a duck feather skirt
toss another painted brick in the flames
a chandelier spaceship floats from city hall
the waves on the deck have been dreams
now they're surging up an overpass
the cops push me onto a stage
the smell of gasoline on old cloth seats
she brought me a bouquet at the barbecue
a handful of cattails and reeds
we've been booked on a freight to Mars
a garden in the kitchen sink
the crews on light-filter patrol
pat me down and send me out to the shore
with a pitchfork and a sack of light bulbs
I sleep in the city's ribcage
next to her garden window
climb to a clock on a fire escape
and a feather that won't blow or bend
magnets past her waist
the mattress under the fireworks
the charcoal marks on the chimney
fish scales scrape teeth in the core of a teepee
forests for business and the street gone wild
I find out where I am in a quiet rage
to talk the sunset down to a foot bath
salt the rivulets that trickle down the hill
so the kids won't follow our careers
a vacuum at the edge of the earth

*****-----*****