This is the leg-lift century
for all the bodies that wish
a figure as slim as a cloud
of blue smoke.

At the far end of the room
stand the people who lost
their left shoe.

I fail to recognize the names
delivered by the news anchor.
In this test of relevancy,
the horses in the barn I clean
defeat congress.

This is not tragedy or comedy,
just a little girl playing in the mud
and tomorrow is laundry day—
all our lost prayers collect
in the lint filter.

Hope is as sinister as the man
flapping his arms on the rooftop,
but this is the leg-lift century
and the world refuses
to spit him into the clouds.

The girl who forgets to weep
for her lost hat, fails to paint the sun
yellow in her desire for a truer shade,
a color Pantone released as a free agent
before the new season started.

Though I executed as many leg-lifts
as my body managed before exhaustion
stopped the sunset, my love, spread too thin,
proved insufficient to lift the layers of fog
from the many harbors where the living
weep for the dead waiting for the ride
of their new lives.