i sat at a table feeling very alone
but cool, pulling at various threads
on my many coats until it was time

and it’s time. i only needed to see it
with my own eyes but yes,
my hero is alive
and i too brush the lab coat auras
while they continue to ignore us

there are several ways
to measure your stays
but don’t engage
the cage

with no spaces in which to go
shoppers, now pedestrians,
bump up uneasy
against makeshift blankets
and browse their feelings
under ghost signs
as their faceless eyes
confront the wild

at the men’s store, never reopened,
its window displays
unchanged from Before

passersby haunted by last year’s fashions
will shade their eyes discreetly
and continue downstream

it’s not exactly acceptance
that they inspire
but any catastrophe that bends and bends
dries out its way into the fire

free of the joy that was masking the heat
i jaywalk to shadier sides of the street
stay close to the edges to dodge the machines
and trust in the instincts that over and over
return me to Queens

as the daylight feels ever more normal
and foreheads move close to the glass
the papered up windows will never quite tire
but will feel the cage of the cast