City Poem (Part II)

A Meditation on the Hotel Waverly

I’m haunted,
haunted—
impatient for enlightenment.

So say the
chalk marks on the blackboard.

The snow blows off a rooftop,
in the whistle of the wind’s
world-lines, lines of tendons, feet
hanging off the edge—a sink
full of day-old oatmeal
or vomit.

Faces come—
an eye on the wall,
face-lines, the gentle curve of cheekbone
and the curl of blue hair
crumbling into chalk marks on the blackboard.

Faces come—
atavistic: the beefy salt of the Earth
bitterness from when I was pierced
wanting to get better,
peering from this place out into
loose space, trying
desperately to open up some view
of world-lines by eating nothing,
hitting my head into the wall
were the wall-eye proclaims:
“sorry…”

The snow blows off a rooftop;
world-lines in wind-lines. And
cause precedes effect,
precedes effect
precedes effect—
as arrows and lines drawn
by chalk on a blackboard.

Consider: "Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same."