Riffing/Improv Ex. 8-23 Wk 2

Mark Doty

Broadway

Under Grand Central's tattered vault
--maybe half a dozen electric stars still lit--
one saxophone blew, and a sheer black scrim

billowed over some minor constellation
under repair. Then, on Broadway, red wings
in a storefront tableau, lustrous, the live macaws

preening, beaks opening and closing
like those animated knives that unfold all night
in jewelers' windows. For sale,

glass eyes turned outward toward the rain,
the birds lined up like the endless flowers
and cheap gems, the makeshift tables

of secondhand magazines
and shoes the hawkers eye
while they shelter in the doorways of banks.



Riff:


Under the faded tin roof
beneath a fistful of stars 
a coyote wails in the distance.
Far from this moment, but close at hand. 


Desert sage sways under 
the stiff and cracked heat, 
its thin pink fingers caught
in splintered door frames, 


opening and closing, 
those tiny knives, 
a lifetime of snagging
elbows and knees caught unawares. 


The store front groans, 
its faded tattoos 
whisper the age of 
its oak skeleton. 


Glass eyes covered,
blinded with old type print, 
rusted nails turning its grin 
to a pit of abscesses. 


Vultures perch along its spine, 
waiting, always waiting, 
their stomachs roused
from their delicious sloth.