Your voice was in my hand
as I rode a city bus
- we were together through the marvel of an unencumbered phone -
And I heard you say, "You'll come? You really want to come?"
as buildings shuffled past
like concrete playing cards.

Then above the jagged cityscape
I could see two helicopters with their blades enmeshed
- humping and pulling like mating dragonflies -
And in the twisted moment my heart forgot to beat.
I sputtered the scene to you
in words like a geyser of blood.

Smoothly the bus moved on, and that fragment of the sky was blocked.
When through a crevice in this world
The sky turned a clamorous white.
I told you what I saw
in words like tortured steel.

In the deepest chamber of my ear,
In a voice so close it resembled thought,
I heard you reply, "You find inspiration everywhere you go."

1997