Step over the ant

The morning news is a funeral,
daily dose of death to eat
side of bacon. Wash it down with

blood. That mercurial aftertaste lays dead
on the tongue, a belch of
how can this be happening over there?

Yet we shake it off faster than excess salt,
we lick our plates,
we carry on.

We are a country of stairs
each step forgetting the one below
so long as we move
up
up
up

I get off the train at Penn Station and climb
concrete flights of apathy,
greeted by a corpse coma-

tose at the tip top.
He is horizontal as a coffin
pants dangling from hook hips.

The wild stampede marches over
him, like an ant on the curb
chasing the dangling meat,

to tear into
prime rib and forget
it once had a mother.

This city stores terror
up the arteries of its avenues.
These people have climbed

the tallest towers
and watched them crumble
to dust, whispering feathers

of a fallen bird.

They’ve cried never forget
as they forget their way
up
up
up