this poem doesn’t mean anything, just a quick draft
breezing through town, down on avenue e before multiplex
cinemas, back when drug dealers and hookers manned
dark corners and Parkettes avoided the neighborhood instead
of desiring it or desired it secretly instead of being seen there
so don’t try to decode the social order of words or images
where lurk critiques of sports cars and SUVs sliding
through well-lit streets occupied by sanitized bodies
that will save sex for going home and only sometimes
barely recall in some late night wet dream the sleaze
that once delighted their imaginations with delicious
fear before walking back into boredom of police protected
sanctity of marriage protocol pollsters blustering cold
winter wind chills silencing the sacrificial lambs of impurity
This Poem
Michael Dickel is a poet, essayist, teacher, and photographer from minneapolis who currently resides in jerusalem.