one after another along
the perspective of the street, the people
remain upright. my hands
are blacking out, from the cold,
dry body of this old woman.
she has died,
while she was sitting, concerned
somewhere in her house, growing
more beautiful, something has left
the big rocker, has moved
through the leaves brushing her window,
beyond the trees and first
national bank to a point
overlooking the collapse of cities.
the rivers are backing up
with whales
and wreckage, with
the crowds of foam becoming huge and
hanging to the factories that lean
over the wettening banks.
the figures
of graves diminish toward
the horizon:
on the street,
these faces are not chipped with grief,
as they leap after busses.
in the window of a store front a man
who did not know her adjusts
the limbs of a mannequin, and
the ascending voice
of a child wants to know, do the rivers freeze
by themselves, can you walk on them.