The world is like a boat and the crew
thinks they know why the water chops the home,
why the forest is picked apart by the bank
and looks like a city or a desert.

The spreadsheet flickers under the lightning
and the crew wants someone overboard
as if they were the storm’s anchor.

I don’t want part of the broken political machine
chewing its leg off like a rabbit in a trap,
I’ve used the pencil to make repair notes,
but maybe it’s time to use the other end.

The phone calls, speeches, endless texts
fill the case of bottomless bottles for a moment
that costs everything and then one missed date, and nothing.

Sometimes the storyline is broken
inside the greenhouse and there’s nothing left
in the outdoor garden, but the empty pots of the beautiful city
waiting under all of the newly poured cement.