the INLAID EAR

 Had trouble finding the right title. Something about how experience is so concentrated here, or in any city. Maybe you have an idea of a different title that could work for this poem? Texture & Discovery A man shares my bench, lowers his shades, flirts with me; but having lunch is why I’m here. I must keep this custard off my shirt. In the city, look and it appears: toothy skyline, transit or dessert. I’ve been a tourist nearly twenty years, still looking up at the tops of towers— still amazed at all the sounds to hear— conversing, saxophones, ambulance howls— not commonplace, the cities of earth. I could wander or I could sit for hours lost in this chaotic summer dream. A woman in a sunflower cowl turns my head right around and then steam billows up from a grate—smells of beer, moving bodies, iron and chlorine— Gotta get back to work. It’s 1:15