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the city, like there is no other, the sun
pulses through trees that flick by—drained art-
eries, capillaries—through windows, roll
of film frames, spastic slide shows minus
the images, exposing eyelids
with age spots on peach, mango, orange
backdrops—residual
kiss-I-miss—seizures
minus the convulsions,
though the car squeaks, jerks
like a carriage.
The horses must be
tired, must unionize, made
to run, frothing, alongside
electric-fence phone lines. The land-
scape stutters by, a pre-talkie that
needs Technicolor touch-up, all browns
and grays and splotches of snow like droppings
of birds. Rock faces bare ice incisors,
scarred incisions from the liposuction for
our locomotion, locomotion. We stop.
Next stop, Poughkeepsie. Poughkeepsie. Dropsy droops
wooden-planked walkways. Yellow cranes by the
puddles by the tracks blink Morris code, unmanned.
Wheat-like weeds jut up from mounds atop glaciers,
unexpected, like stiff hairs on nose tips. Houses
pop up on hill tops like Legos—all
parallels and perpendiculars. Weep-
ing willows like out-turned pockets spill
golden threads by pond with thawed pupil,
unblinking. Rusted erector sets
meld water towers into mid-
western roller coasters, defunct,
fossils of gold-rush towns. Forty-
niners transact business from
train seats slipped with carpet brushed
by library hush—
custard and cranberry
—scratchy like wool
sweaters, crackling
from the petting of
an absent mind’s hand. Three-
way calls split between two
providers, Damn Sprint, delayed
syncopation conferencing
brought to you by imperfect
technology—jazzy rings
cut in. Unbolted bathroom door
slaps shut, opens up, plays percussion
with window rattlings. Evergreens
spaced split-seconds apart roll into
toothy smiles, mocking nevergreens, gnarled
spindles of frozen forest fire. The
chipped brick of post-industrial warehouses,
the arched lids of colonial house lookouts.
Platform quaint enough for a picnic. Lampposts
bow their blue bells on green stems. This stop, Yonkers.
Discarded relics surface through the thaw—
a lamp, a couch, crates screaming Fragile and Theft
of this box is a criminal offense.
Billboards snap up—Wicked, Wake-up and
smell the news, Civilization is
so overrated. Darkness. In snap-
shots hieroglyphs bloat like nuked hot-
dogs. Roman numerals shoulder
the overpass like Atlas. Hazy
light, a half-opened eye. Bulldozers
doze near stripped siding—jagged rock slap.
Darkness. Metal screams echo keenings of
blue-whales, their babies picked off. Our next stop is
our last stop. New York City, pearl of the world.
dream
logic
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