Poet’s showcase

Living with Humans

By Jesse Nathan

For Salmon, a dull pink means

well-cooked. We’ll

leave that for now. A black Volvo turning elsewhere,

& sometimes

a cold sharp in your pocket. The night is a car

with tinted windows, pregnant with uncooked

worry. If the cars had people in them. Would they

still drive as if they didn’t care?

We wander

wondering about the quiet beneath the lids

of these tupperware houses. Rolling the idea around

in your head, it begins to make sense: A dull pink.

A black Volvo. Things raw becoming settled destiny.

Things turning away in the night, going their own way.

This convenience store:

oil stains

don’t fade at gas stations. It’s seedy at this one, the air

stinks a heavy stale. Everyone has been here,

groping for footing on this curb, this sidewalk,

this historic corner. The night

& this neighborhood

are more labyrinthine than I ever expected. It’s darker

than I ever thought it would be.