Haze

 

hangs heavy

down into trees: dawn

doesn’t break today,

the morning

seeps into being, one

bird, maybe

two, chipping

away at it. A white dahlia,

big

as Baby Bumstead’s head,

leans

its folded petals

at a window, a lesson

in origami.

Frantically, God

knows what machine: oh no,

just Maggio’s

garbage truck.

Staring

at all the roughage

that hides an estuary,

such urbanity

seems inapt: the endless city

builds on and on

thinning out, here and there,

for the wet green velvet towels

(“slight imperfections”)

of summer

“moderately priced)

and a hazy morning

in August,

even that

we may grow to love.