II .1 . iii — Empires of vapour

by Michael Boughn

Among Dupont’s tattered
wounds,
commerce’s ragged
edge, sudden curve
of attention shaped
to cocked hip
draped in thought.  Small
blessing opens drama
of exceptional light
without benefit
of a single belief, no
strings attached
She
doesn’t even know
just that sweep
of thigh is full
of dream, in
habitation, strange ground
no fixed
address, nothing
tied to scheduled arrivals.  City’s concrete examples built
of codes that hold
sweeping limits
in further dramas
of skies offering
exceptional currency, as charge
flows through Bloor’s
afternoon roar, sudden blue
through sun flashed towers

Then it’s just
you, me and the next
corner where sympathy
of earth and sun plays
out
in transitive intimations
of further elations
among stellar events
and distribution of cruelty
remains a matter
of querulous attention to news
of another
dead child
starved, beaten
just down the road

So much a part
of us
a plural pronoun
containing
second town’s becoming
animal crossing into asphalt
extensions along edge
coyote trails sweep through
along curve of riparian
memories urban rent
green slash through towers’
feeble hold

Hard to figure
such implicate energies in odd\
corners of soul
studded with fall’s ragged
corridors,
leaf litter

Clouds that suggested
titular elaborations
of ocular command
and a certain return to loins
of the visible are buoyed
by hot luminescence
in storied distances
between roofs
still fill eyes
with folds and shadows
announce billows
of time
amid thought
of city’s face
promise sweeping
from the end
to beyond