2.

Longer reading, even though by exit’s no display,
as consumer paradise stews the criss-cross city
and soap powders perform a castella’s smithereen of poise,
seismological effusions wither with the vine,
the gate perpetually shut.
Sandwich board architecture knifes over the city.
The escalator reminds me of you as does a wall
in the paraffin trees of fleet-footed Spring.

The commissars adore ceremony, and standing on it,
but I prefer a swamp bordered with abandon,
a trumpet at your balustrade,
a car of squabblers eating fallen pizza off the road,
every line a gasket,
the stairwell bending as you sailed into the past.
Call the broken waves that you sink, Thyrsis,
arms ashes and the house renovated and the street painted.

Gig Ryan

Gig Ryan’s books include New and Collected Poems (2011).