monarchs

this was the primordial sleepless city
where the crickets never quit
under bright sun bright moon

on they sing accompaniment to
willow joy by great lake breezes
like a thousand crosswalkbuzzerboxes
chirps here deliver mannahatta shame

orange and black and orange
and orange and black
these living leaves they fall
upward and against the wind
to make mention of gravity
of journeys greater
than any anymore might take

the waves here lick
muddy hard lake sand
to wash the runny shit out
brown in
and delay swimming
for another day
instead they gift
bleached plastic shell things
left heedless to sway
with the flows they are buried
under black paste cattail humus and
in white gulls stopped guts

twice yearly they stop here
in subdivision and thicket
coached to rest then flutter
by timeless calls of the cricket