how to be a living animal 

i try to put the city to sleep 
one light bulb at a time. 
a lullaby in my teeth.
a want a baby so i can tuck him
in a basinette & send him down the hudson river
to be discovered by people more beautiful than me. 
the ocean is farther away than it's ever been.
the sky is not a ceiling 
but a body of water waiting to sigh.
have you ever seen a building 
crouch down on its knees? all the grime 
& all the smudges comes together 
to make one big shadow behind me
stretching longer than a train car.
when i say sleep i mean the kind
without dreams. we don't need a skyscraper
dreaming all over the place. 
what i want to witness is a palm-sized moment.
one second where the moon is 
the loudest object in the city.
all the trees discuss asphalt & cement.
they coil into knots of hair. i do not belong
in this terrain. i was always destined 
for a thicker membrane. all the humans
are trying to wash their hands.
a public bathroom full of geese.
i use my butterfly net to capture 
taxi cabs. all their yellow dulls to wax.
what does sleep mean to you?
i cannot sleep unless 
everyone else is asleep. i check 
for light under my housemates doors.
i paint a watch on the back of my wrist
& it's always going to be midnight.
noon might come without any light tomorrow.
the city might be a cradle of stoplights. 
as a child, i prayed each night
like the world might end any moment.
i was taught god was fickle.
a wavering trolley coming into focus.
i imagined the world ending
in a very organized fashion.
god would come over the intercom 
& say we had a good run but it's over.
i am the cause of many endings.
the city deserves a sliver of stillness.
everything asleep
i lay down on a bench designed
to prevent people from sleeping on it.
coiled like a feral cat.
i press a coin in my palm,
feeling all its ridges.
it is a wheel i could build a car around.
i will soon escape 
to a quieter place still
or maybe use the coin as 
a porthole of a submarine.
silence floods over us all.
a street is easily undone. vacant vein.
there is no one else 
in the whole city. only me & 
piles of ghosts. i wander around 
looking for another lightbulb 
to unskrew. i want to stick it to my tongue
& see if it glows. i don't find any.
they all shown as they floated
out to sea to learn how to be organisms.
i still need to learn
how to be an organism.