It began sticky; a hot crowded subway car
with something sprayed over the seats
like dried urine. I felt it a humorless way
to mark one's territory in a city populated
like matchboxes stacked upon each other.
Two rubbing together might burst into flame
and burn the whole block down. It grew
hotter, more crowded, in a greenhouse
growing adult toys. Each man walking
became stiffer with each step, like a dried-
out Christmas Santa made of papier-mache.
Each woman wore less, much like a fantasy
of adolescent bravado, but in the end it grew
into a liking for toys and gloss and metal
and a one-horse race already won by the guy
outside in the car. So I guess it couldn't
really be worse, but then I got contracted
to work in Santa's shop, and I grew like stiff
like him; stiff as a board with a knot in the
middle, so I actually choked on my tears
as they forced themselves out. Which is what
I did till I realized I was sprinting downhill,
with an angel in my ear, feeling free flying
low without a stock broker's care in the world.
Till I guess I realized that shit don't matter
when I'm not there. That place conveys
feeling, like distance conveys time and
a genie conveys this poem, like an angel
in my ear. Like the sun on the moon.
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