RUINED INTERIOR

In the beginning was the world.  
Then the new world.
Then the new world order 

which resembles the old one
doesn’t it?  Its crumbling 
aqueducts.  Its trinkets and shingles.

Its pathways smothered in fog.
If all we’ve done is blink a bit 
and touch things, 

notice how dust describes 
a tin can by not falling 
where it sits, or how a red sleeve 

glimpsed through curtains 
mimics the tip of a whispering 
tongue, was the whole day a waste 

or can worth be conferred 
on a less than epic urge?  Bow-wow 
says the doggie on page two.  

Ahoy says the sailor.  
Arise says the tired queen, 
and face the highway, 

the donut shops, and the boardwalk.  
It rained today, and you could see perfect 
inversions of streetlights 
 
suspended in the drops on the window.  
You could see the skyline 
trying to hold up the sky.

Don’t tell me there’s another, 
better place.  Don’t tell me 
there’s a sea 

above our dreaming sea
and through the windows of heaven
the rains come down.