The body of New Jersey is sleepy.
The sky of New Jersey
is imitation crocodile.
The people of New Jersey hold sunburn
by its delicate hand and say grace in the consequent light
of their television sets.
In the morning sometimes a sparrow
arrives at a window to ask for a dram of salt.
Politeness is absurd
but bad manners won’t do come teatime.
Right then the people
of New Jersey listen to the body of New Jersey underneath
the sky of New Jersey.
No longer can they ignore the gin mills
smoldering like an East European drama.
No longer can
they rake leaves.
They weep openly in their backyards, beneath
their smokestacks and overpasses, all sweetly candid under
the fast sorrow of the tax collector’s case.
The air is empty,
as it always is.
The air that has no voice though we bully it
with flight and forest fires.
At the television’s supper table
we are still at odds with the sparrow.
The sparrow, who sings.