by Lisa Marie Popp

 

In some glassy jazz

the greatness of what might have been, 

like the world was already shattered.

The band swims and dives deep,

touching another wave that drowns reeds,

jagged, on a city beach

at some clouded change of day.

Someone blows a horn

but there is no river

no manholes, no streets,

just bridges

between pieces of broken 

around which winds twist.

Trashes rattle, hum, crawl across

planes of vacant concrete of a city,

cold, as if it was already shattered.