summer had been torn
-pinched by the first bare
arms of the autumn
undoing buttons and removing
the loose light
and the stored heat
leaked out
the quick and 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 a green-brown and pine-black
peripheral of mountain bike terrain
and the grey-tan gravel
of an oval running track
was brightening in gradual degrees
of f.stop
as the volume of the light increased.
I sat on the rolled up sleeping
bag and felt 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 stainless
steel coffee cup
I thought I would say was like
the born broke
workforce I live in, shouldering
bent-over the water.
but then I thought of the camera-
followed world class performer
who can’t buy a burger
in track pants
without immediate
comment, likewise
their cellulite
in swim gear, the exaggerated
un-care, the carved out
shopped images, the front page
harassment, the oh-my-gash-shot
of that girl with her exit
from the limo, the eventual
impromptu head shave,
the rumors of Monarch
parameters collapsing.
as 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-feed
workforce, this squashed
burning of presence freed
from the pressurised can,
and more of a wealth beyond privilege
thing, sigil-holding families filmed
from the balcony, the steerage expected:
the King is dead, long live the Roll,
that Position, remaining as people
are pushed into their palaces
to dress and be presented.
this spinning set running in us
as 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.