Poem Considers Masculine Profit

penniless Poem does not look

well in this light, stark and industrial

dawns with loud semis coming

and going from the factory outlet

behind, a swamp squawks and chitters—

it is unclear whether it pre-existed the mall

or was moved there 

Poem is waiting for a ride or something

like epiphany and is attracting stares

the guy across the way selling

burgers and whistling at a vague idea of salvation

why does Poem always end up out of it?

out of sync? out of fashion? out of the way?

pacifism ripples from the untoward

breeze, an ease, a conditional spark of

not knowing why or who to demean, not

wanting to own any of those favorite terms for torture

commercial driving love into mouths, a kind of self-
immolition and Poem exists, stubborn leaflets crumpling under
the boots of the pornographic entrepreneurs
consolidating an unsustainable hate into
something all the stakeholders can approve

jeez, Poem thinks, presses a thumb to his
pulse—if I am not a live man then I’d better
find some new seeds—not a plot but an area—

something simple, some camouflage, some cache