Poem Tries to Hail a Cab

Code whizzes by and Poem is left
ineffectual at 1st and Main
centrally unheeded and unsure
of how to proceed. But he is
in no hurry and likes who
stands with him there, shivering,
bemused: Editing weighs options,
jokes about what could have been;
Font gazes the opposite direction,
admiring the way the street curves
into the industrial park and her shoe is untied;
Paper, unflappable, is telling stories about publishers and
their odd habits of self-destruction.
Laughter, warmly uncomfortable on the curb,
ebbs as the vehicle of time management
flashes by. Poem is worried the others
may catch cold, who will pay the fare,
that this is an elaborate
symbol for the state of poetry
in the world, huddled there,
waiting for something.