Crossing the street, a street

so wide and tumultuous I thought

maybe I was walking on water, I,

with mutes shoved inside my sneakers

(some have got ears like you couldn’t imagine!),

came across a newborn

still covered in his red veil, still plugged in.

 

“Baby!” I cried. “Where is your mother?”

 

He rolled over then, pulled tight

on that wire protruding from his belly

and gave it a firm pluck.

A note rang out, the top E from an acoustic guitar,

the kind that resonates in the skull

long after it’s finished resonating in the air,

and he said,

 

“I tossed her in the dumpster behind that building.”

 

He jerks his head in the direction of

which he is speaking. I hear a wail?

A whale? Stranded on a hard, blue, metallic beach?

 

“I’ve got too much living to get done,” he says,

wrenching the old life-line

from his stomach, casting it aside to dry and

harden just as he will, like autumn leaves.

 

“Anchors away!”