Broadway

Michael Dickman

The last taxi cab on earth 
glides past without any help 
& breathes 
through crystal sac 

Air in flukes or  
upside down water 
in a glass

Where we come from 

Sliding paper doors reveal repeating mountains clouding against the western sky 

Busses are re-routed 
using a feedback loop that also effects 
the real ferns & rain 

I was loved & looked out the window through rain and kids
	 
Orange roe  
connected by telephone & span 
picks up passengers for free
& drops them downtown 

Mica in coral 

A replacement shoal parked along the curb

Poet Michael Dickman's second collection of poetry, Flies, received the 2010 James Laughlin Award

About Michael Dickman

Themes

About this Poem

“‘Broadway’ is a poem in part about the Broadway bridge in Portland, Oregon, where I grew up. A bridge I've driven and walked over hundreds of times it is, in fact, a Rall-type bascule bridge, the longest of its type, and spans the Willamette river. The poem converges language about the bridge, traffic, marine life, classic Japanese prints, childhood, and coast lines, as if seen through a light, or heavy rain, depending on who you are.”
—Michael Dickman

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From the Canal

Something breathes
on a dead deer
and the hair inside its ears
wave

Headlights and
rubber

Water fills the black eyeholes that keep seeing everything reflected back from skidding
black macadam

Someone cut your feet off

Someone moved your leg across the street

Someone whistled

Giving birth
you give birth to steam
and maggots

Strange new butterflies

Michael Dickman

2013

Killing Flies

I sit down for dinner
with my dead brother
again

This is the last dream I ever want to have

Passing the forks 
around the table, passing 
the knives

There's nothing to worry about

One thing I want to know is who's in the kitchen right now if it isn't me

It isn't me

The kitchen is full of flies, flies are doing all the work

They light on the edge
of the roasted chicken
The bone china

That's what they do

Light


*


I will look 
more and more like him
until I'm older
than he is

Then he'll look more like me

if I was 
lost

The flies need to be killed as soon as we're done eating

Michael Dickman

2011

Shaving Your Father's Face

First I get a father
from some city
of fathers

One with a neck

bright 
red

And with all the tiny bird bones in my fingers carefully tip his chin back into the light like love
so I can see
so I can smell

Michael Dickman

2010

Poems

Broadway

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From the Canal

Killing Flies

Shaving Your Father's Face

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Broadway

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