I’m standing on 10th Street. I’m not the only one. Buildings rise like foliage and human touch. And so shall dig this cigarette as my last, and rattle trains, and rot the fences of the gardens of my body— or without the harmony of speaking here the many sounds and rhythms that sound a lot like anger when anger’s silent, like a painting, though in the stillness of the paint itself the painter nods or waves or asks for help. I’m not the only one. The pharmacy’s untitled. The stars are there at night. In this Humidity the forlorn singing of the insects clings to anything nailed down. A whole bag of things I’m working through, some set things that I know, like words I know that mean "from one place to another," the word that means "to carry." I’m standing still on 10th Street. I’m not the only one. The dark tastes of salt and oranges. Its eyes wander round and round. I am its thousand windows. I think about the future and the sea. And stay.
From Exceptions and Melancholies: Poems 1986-2006 by Ralph Angel, published by Sarabande Books, Inc. © 2006 by Ralph Angel. Reprinted by permission of Sarabande Books and the author.