Paths more than cross
it is a stampede of crossings
No Allegheny and Monongahela
peaceably merging
but a thousand streams
winding through stone, root, gutter
with a thousand degrees of urgency
Trysts crossing with divorce proceedings,
long-employed with treks to unemployment offices,
wedding ring sellers with floor-length gown buyers,
one-man shows with third chair bassoon,
bus passenger & state trooper
who in hours will come upon
his dismembered body after the crash,
sleepwalkers with poets,
playwrights with their critics,
the spurned with the sought-after,
seamstress with stripper
union riggers with demolitionists,
marathoners & the metaphorists
running in place,
followers with trailblazers,
diagnosticians with the diagnosed,
tumor-bearers with the tumor-aware
& those yet to be told
obstreticians with oncologists
gossip columnists with proverbalists
urologists with pornographers.
It is a Gibbonless fall of Lilliputia
disappearing into a crosshatch
of appearance & disappearance:
of riddles solved through opposition
Undressed, their unresearched sackcloths
lie in small piles across the floor:
to-do lists in the victim's purse,
seven plot outlines in the late novelist's computer
Most wander into the depository
uncounted, unopposed
unready for the crossings, shoulderings,
other insufficiencies of arrival
September 2011