the choreography

you tell me you think it's inevitable 
that you will move to a town like the one
you grew up in-- the tiny main street &
the street lamp all coming on at once--
double yellow lines of the street like
one-suspender on a man who laid down
to watch us grow like onion grass
in his chest. encountering fireflies 
in the day time i shoo them away-- i unscrew
their lights to use as spare bulbs in
my bedroom. i tell you i need more lamps.
i've started to believe in the choreography 
of it all. it's not beautiful. i mean 
i think they're printing newspapers weeks
in advance-- there's a big vault beneath
the city where everything's been decided.
maybe there's a mail man who goes down there--
trembles in front of a plastic wrapped door
before he cuts it open again with a pocket knife.
i tell you, of course, that i belong in a city
that i have always belonged in a city.
i think i'm so adamant about this because i'm
terrified of waking up in the bed room
of my parent's house. i'll be forty-something
& despite living in a far away city,
maybe as far as berlin or madrid, nowhere will
be far enough to fight to design of it all.
i've been reading a book about living in 1980s 
AIDs crisis. David Wojanarowicz says that
living under Reagan was like having a pillowcase
pulled over his head, looking at all the 
little threads woven together & feeling entirely
powerless about them. he says that it's a kind of
feigned deafness under the wings of a helicopter.
i'm thinking of the time that at the diner 
overlooking the tiny airport
my dad told me that he was scared of
helicopters because sometimes they go off kilter
& decapitate people. i was scared to leave
the building because one was hovering, ready
to land. i'm hoping this will lead
me to the vault beneath everything. every city 
has one. where they tape the news & make paper machete
police officers. how far in advance
has this been planned? will you go there with me?
i don't want to feel choreographed alone.
there's a girl tap dancing on a linoleum floor 
& she's me & she sees herself in the mirror in a line
of young girls all doing the same. the leotards
don't fit. where do
you keep you pocket knives? i fantasize about
knocking main street down like a pile of wooden blocks.
i'm sitting on the floor with the broken glass
giving me away. they pick me up & fold me length wise.
they feed me onion grass & bent street lamps.
they tell me to close my eyes & let it happen.
when i wake up i'll start walking again, out of
my bed room at my parents house & up the highway 
towards the city, on her knees crawling
away from me. a wounded ant.