summer had been torn
by the first bare arms of the autumn
beginning to undo her wooden buttons
and remove the layers of loose light
and leaves from her lean brown body ;
stored heat leaked out quicker at night
the beautiful career of being awake
now asked and expected more
overtime, so I was up and moving lines around
a travel-softened notebook
in a cool dewy predawn
facing green-lemon and pine-black
peripherals of mountain bike terrain
brightening in gradual degrees.
As the volume levels of the light increased
I sat on the rolled up sleeping bag
facing the grey-tan gravel oval running track,
heating water, warming light flours,
feeling the fire-orange red blend quickly
into blues the juvenile hue of the gas flame.
the sharp tip of the flame top
muffled under the coffee cup
I thought I would say was like
the born broke workforce I live in,
am made from, shouldering
bent-over the water.
but then I thought of the camera-
followed world class performer,
movie-star, who cannot buy a burger
in track pants
without immediate comment,
likewise their cellulite
in swim gear, their front page
harassment,
the oh-my-gash-shot,
of that girl
with her exit
from the limo, the
eventual impromptu
head shave rumours
of Monarch parameters
collapsing.
I carefully heated the croissant, turning
with a twig through the pastry like meat
on a spit, and white runners with prams
and hatted babies received dawn
properties of benediction I’d left off
thinking it was like a wage-fed workforce,
this squashed burning of presence
freed from the pressurised can
and more of a wealth beyond privilege thing,
sigil-holding families filmed & photographed
from the balcony, the steerage expected:
the King is dead, long live . that . Position
remaining as people are pushed into their palaces
to dress and be presented. this spinning set
running in us; they come around the track
each time, the babies, their faces
say they’re utterly perfectly at peace with that.
the burning gas…at controlled release—
no more historical than that.