Dallas

Here, I saw a jump-cut ballet of green skyscrapers
dance across a Cadillac, scatter into a haze
and escape through a false night sky.

So I gave up faith in Orion's Belt, kissed Ursa Major
goodnight for summer, and found my home on Loop 12.
Moving tore me open, but now the architecture heals.

On the museum lawn, jazz wrapped the red, sprawling
sculpture and brought us to our feet to slide across the bricks.
Then, a black woman smacked my hip and said, "Smile, boy!"

So I smiled at the horse race in its colors of royalty
and beasts of speed. I smiled at my place of rest,
my home for the Summer.

NYC

Here I pushed through the dirty thicket of all Manhattan
in breathless insomnia, a Van Gogh of lost lucidity
with the colors of madness, and the half-genius of delirium.

But in sewer steam, in the humidity of industry, Williamsburg
brought me rest and distance. I stepped on soft grass
and sat near the water.

The Navy in their white cotton rode for Staten Island,
and spent the ferry ride searching for company.
The air was cold mist and the city swelled into our wake.

Above Central Park, I heard the chords of a dense, hidden hymn
emanate from the MET, matching history with chaos,
where a green quilt is the lifeblood of this neighborhood.

On each block, I found the constant chemical reaction
of hot life. In each park, I found the holiness of empty space.
And in the street, I found a home.

The weather comes to us

A thunderstorm grew above the interstate,
so we followed the funnel clouds east of Ardmore
in the now hail-littered countryside
and we drove over the fresh green leaves
laid at our feet like palm leaves leading to Jerusalem.

A family stood out on their porch
to capture the purple and gray growing mountains
and the radio reminded us every two minutes
take cover, find a bathtub!

We had box seats for the devastation, where
our adrenaline grew the lifting storm. where
the people who lived so long
in window boxes stretching out for sunlight
now had the weather come to them.

Membrane

A white hospital bed
or an astronaut's gold visor—
thin membranes between blood
and the infinite.