Twice a year, the sun aligns with the city grid.

Parallel river, oil spill, traffic plume,

We practice doing nothing. I refuse to remember my birth chart.

Some weeks get redacted—blame anything on time difference.

It’s futile to agree this often:

We will always be measured against catastrophe.

Thank god for time difference.

When the dam is dismantled, an overture,

A weapon blunted.

The shimmer of a fish spine returning to the same river that birthed him,

to spawn, to die.

We should all be so lucky

But obligation is not powerful enough.

I love it when

I close my eyes and it’s a casino.

Naturally occurring magenta against the pattern of a xylophone,

Overloaded on oxygen, swindled multicolor panic

Pleasure is interference,

Picked back up, contorted, fast.

Never a breath deep enough, flush of air.

Time differences. Scarcity and lust.

The ocean was lenticular when you squeezed my hand.

Don’t forget

fear of loss shrinks the orbit,

which is interminable.

It hurts to widen your eyes when the wind gusts

past the pollen to moiré, sewage, lump in your throat, mine too, particle board, flammable

curves, sweat unto music.

Way too fragrant, this blush contagion.

Melancholic aftertaste of August distinct from grief,

Sullen river bloated memory bank

Every pothole castigated

Makes no difference

Shame on us for the hysteria, moreover the reluctance.

Underburdened,

abandoned by maturity,

Another summer spent without a gun.

Next time, they will not forbid me from sitting on that jetty.