Central Park, New York

The prancing horses of Central park
are bridled and broken like
the immigrant men who drive them.

their shoes , appropriate for the late
18th century, are anachronistic on
these cement streets.

Their dress, uncomfortable and unclean, have too many bells and buckles.

They are scenery along with the blooming crab apple,
the windblown lake, the British tourists.

They are dead, you know?

The horses?

The men?

The geese and their plastic feathers?

He came here to be model.
That plastic hair, that perfect scruff.

He came here to showcase polo shirts
and boxer briefs in staged scenes
of friends at the beach or a
rooftop barbecue.

he is only wearing sweat pants and
a blue graphic tee as we ride the
1, south towards the West Village.

But maybe this is staged as well,
and tomorrow's billboard will be
this same scene: gray sweatpants,
incomparable ennui, the orange seats
of this dirty subway, and an older Chinese woman,
her eyes closed, her hands folded.

Human accessories.

Critics will marvel, how her quiet defeat
brings out his eyes.

While proctoring a math test

Like children with blocks,
they take each problem and hold it in their hands.
They complain about how dull the colors are, how
sharp the edges and corners are.
They press the blocks against them until they bleed.

They show me the blood.

They say it is my fault.

Their minds are not constant. Their attention
ebbs and flows like the Atlantic.
They are, in the same moment, both cresting
and being swalloed whole.

They say they can't breathe.

They say it is my fault.

And it is.

And I will choke and drown them all until the child that cannot is finally lifeless on the floor of this place. The child that can, peeling off banana skin and rising (some fruit phoenix) to the task.