Walking Maranasati Double Octet

(7/13/17)

I’d like to forgive my lungs’ malfunction, ask

my lungs’ forgiveness too; cigarette smoke sky

billowing congestion all the way up to

the afterlife, its sequestered, collapsed stars:

coffee shop windows lined with brown paper, crow

gliding above the roof is the logical

outcome, a black breath emerging to after-

noon; one maple branch hangs broken, leaves expired—

◦

I-5 traffic circulates under my feet—

the overpass quakes through its spine & rib cage—

three salsify stalks quake too on sunburnt grass;

is it traffic is it the north wind the crow

intersects gliding east into the past, in-

to overcast static in mutable flow,

this body walking west where the two trains pass,

my breath in sequence with the walk sign’s countdown

Jack Hayes

© 2017