Weather and Turtles

The rain fell with startling regularity.
Sections of understanding were imposed
on the lake—a likeable but needy reservoir—
and on that great instrument, the street.

Okay, but can we have a little luster,
here, please, a little texture? It’s like a weekly occurrence,
this laughing at the limbs of people
who march by you, intent on shopping
or seeing the world—whatever, so long
as it has nothing to do with you, frantic dimwit
on your nightmarish carousel of doubt, who sees
and yet proclaims, and sees on, but no one
can stop the frantic danse macabre
ensuing from soda fountains, shoestores, penny arcades
buried in a stratum of light like cheese.

It’s the old dumb-show thing now.
I see, I read, I nap.
Thankfully the chimaera never came near me,
relaxing in its cave.