Your Windmills Can Set Down Their Fireworks

by Anton Yakovlev

You’re losing me in counterfeit Tarot cards,
in lines you’ve written hoping for someone else
to slow your fall through the earth.  I write
incomprehensible lyrics to be alone with your God.

Don’t look for me.  I’m hanging out in your lobby,
but you left months ago.  You were born and died
almost immediately according to that bystander.
Memories crash into my frozen yogurt.

You’re losing me when you say you’re a spirit world.
You’re losing me when you say you’re death.
I do not look for you in the early bird parking lots.
I do not look for you in the grapefruit shrubs.

I wanted to keep you alive;
now I’m an iPad streaming
news that never took place.  I’m missing
the most important part of your parade.

I should be arrested for having lingered
this long.  You ring like a carnival,
and no one understands you’re a manuscript
left in someone else’s Saragossa.

I see you in a forgotten coliseum.  I see you now
as I never saw you in 1200 BC.  I’m so scared I only
spoke to the God in you.  And you —
you only see yourself as recyclables.