Residential Euphemism

I got off a stop early
skated over the stinky vents
scoped out the slumbering
blanketed on the benches
substance happening everywhere now
the collective traffic-light change is picking up
from different islands
we stare into the anatomy of our contradictions

Don’t worry, I’ll take no pictures of you.

I’ve seen there’s grass in the projects and no such thing as lawns
I suspect you’ll make me sad one day
give me an excuse to make friends again
the kind that know how to make epiphanies like magic

with eyes closed it’s maybe a place I used to live
the one next to the trash compactor and the elevator shaft
or maybe it’s another nocturnal sidewalk
growing a black plastic psoriasis

It’s a good thing my camera is broken now
there’s nothing automatic about it

I take a chance at allowing the common dirt to breeze into my eyes
just to see the faces match the voices of the men selling watermelon on the corner
now I know they can’t be cops
and I decide that I prefer everyone becomes a kind of plant
as I press their leaves into my plans

Years from now, I play a silent album and I won’t have to think
it will be the best-selling record of all time
it will occur to me that if I open the pages of an old heavy book
there may be almond or hand-shaped skeletons that held a color once

everything is the new golden now only because we forgot
there is a little more sparkle in things that don’t flash