Where To Sit

by Kathleen Kilcup

And so I sit on this damp bench,
on an island of arching bushes,
and quivering buds,
humming and dangling in the rain,
and all around the edges
stretch war-torn arms
of asphalt,
a dead army of imprisoned pebbles,
then up above,
windows suffocating in their frames,
and up above,
sooty roofs,
then all those gauzy clouds,
and twirling wind,
and I think of the lips of orchids
and oceans,
don't lash themselves,
like we do when we splinter
into parts that love,
and parts that don't know how,
and parts that roll in the mud
because it's easier to stay dirty,
and how we say that is like the animals,
how we say that people don't sit in the mud.