The New Waste

This is my life rolled into yours,
a place where safety pins pierce
skin and flip our eyes upside down.

Shots of coffee, bullet wounds,
and bats--all attacks on downtown
streets, and jaded memorizations.

The earth felt damp, like a trip-
wire playing fingers, dancing trap-
work, the need to be home when gone.

And through the soft wired mesh,
a thick glaze of snow sat still,
soaking into topmost layers of life.

When the fumes are released from
the edge of the automobile, triumph
lingering in the mouth, backseat,

the most dreadful characters rise,
are given life and death to. They
move about like absences, portals.