Essence and Justification

There is a machine at the end of the block.

It is a child playing jacks, the wide sweep of the hand

like the closeting of a bird’s wing.

A tree chances a dropped branch

hugging a power line to the ground; the man cutting

the branch aligns with a desire for removal

of possibility. Walk the sidewalk, unafraid.

You construct eventuality. The machine exhibits

lust and in its shadow anthills arise.

This night men will enter a house

and take willing participants. The fiction

is participation, though everyone has a part.

With daylight a woman in a sea green dress

assumes herself conspicuous. She pauses before

certain houses, scratches a leg, shows some skin.