the delicate arch was on fire at midnight
a few stars had swum like earthworms
through hardened concrete & though 1000 starlings
will fail to coalesce into something beyond
that same old fear of dying young & faintly remembered
the whole scene grew unbearably refined
until the moment Miss Utah sharted audibly
her tiara bore striking resemblance to that dismal time when
you & I were on opposite sides of the möbius stripmall
smoking lucky strikes because it was something we all felt was desired of us
as if self-immolation was all we could ask of any architect
for whom the neon glow of the world’s largest McDonald’s
eclipses the quarter moon without any fear of intimacy

fingertips tracing her invisible history Blaschko’s lines

Clayton Beach