Austin
Much to my cynical surprise
Strength has scrubbed the street.
Last June the Starbucks
Were Everest camps;
Now some act of God,
Some wind of man’s desire,
Has scudding-sent the tents—
Where? I asked. “To the woods,”
Said one savvy stranger—
An iron broom will sweep
“So far, and no further.”
Friday night in March;
June’s hell is softened,
The air is California;
The twilight girls
Hand in hand, or in packs
Not pretty nor plain,
Drift like fish to the bars;
I sit alone, on my phone,
On a steamcleaned bench,
Tapping out this verse.
Technically, I realize,
Besides a wife and a half-
Spent life, curdling already
In the lower back—
I actually have everything
I want. The passing forms,
Young, bright, and not unhappy,
Going where they need to be,
Seem slotted on rails
Of locomotive desire.
Is the future made of them?
Across the river, in the trees,
Death gets high in a tent.