by Sujash Purna
Artificial intelligence pouring over our devices
from the lost connection to the windglass penultima:
Battlefield road scurry field of trucks, like semi-sleepy
city will gear up for a cold and bleak November.
I am here still counting the missing birds
on top of the abandoned bank staring blank
And a collage mirages upon the empty
parking lots, busted up soda cups,
one wind wave at a time smiles after
another peak, we decide we will stay
inside our homes again, but the roaring
bikes on wheelies of this city mock everything-
billboards wink with unpaid bills for electricity,
the sky churns up in sirens for another drug
bust, the yellow lines smudge like the homeless
girl’s smudged lipstick, rubbing her belly
I haven’t been paid for three months,
looking out for church signs only to drive
away when there is a red capped man
leers at me for who I am, I can only smoke
for a dime cigarette, but tell me that I should
defend with every inch of my arsenic blood
the dignity of men who never pay their taxes.
Artificial intelligence pulls me through another
bout of schizophrenia, another windglass
pneumonia is knocking at the door, I am her
and she is somebody with her torn shawl on,
this bleak November means everything to her.