Picnic in the Median

Love, there’s nowhere to sit. Not in my

cramped room with books strewn on the ground. Too bad we can’t fly

like those northbound geese lined up like teeth in the sky.

The unfathomable machine that owns

everything and, for two days of the week, loans

us back to ourselves, has planted bags of bones

in every street, so love, there’s nowhere to sit.

There’s no room for our checkered cloth, so hold on to it

until we find a patch of grass separate

from the traffic lanes, somewhere not too far

because if we had the money for a car

to drive out to the sticks, we’d spend it at a bar

where, with two pints and a plate of chips, they’ll

let us sit. The public parks are all for sale

and somebody’s installed a middle rail

on almost every bench

to keep from sleeping there the people who can stand the stench

of exhaust. But love, if we could take a wrench

to the machine and rewind the worn gears

of human sprawl to when all this was corn, deer

and alders, we’d find ourselves left out, ’cause we weren’t born here.