THE POWERS
“The birds have freed the stop signs.”
—Robert Rauschenberg
tip, hip brushes
waist, wrist,
elbow nudges chest,
buttocks for sale
in the plaza de mistrance
where even the fountains spit blood
where locos
once danced
now plan
in place
in stead
where towers tell
the town and the earth
opens yawning with its
thick silence,
somnolence
a dumpsterful of
rubble, red
rust, dust, detritus
sticky in his mouth
and, more, his eyes
snarling at the powers