You make your mark like this, by scraping

the poetry of the future clean

of angels’ body parts, or proving

humiliation is flammable,

by mounting hypnotic spectacles

of confidence or holding the head

of state rock-steady in your cross-hairs.

This is how you make it, by offering

something to echo and erosion.
Candidly the hand that shook the can

writes I like short short$ and having writ

texts to see what’s going down under

the sign of the sneakers full of rain.

Not a lot. A concrete-pumping boom

swings into place. A footsore psycho-

geographer stops to consider

mysticism as a Trojan Horse

to revive the city’s dead angles.
Headquarters of the public secret

constellation of places and things

my sister has shaped: a chicken gleans,

a cup of tea goes cool reflecting

crow-flight and cloud-shear. Holding open

an unflinching eye, she lets the drop

fall while sketching on a mental bloc

towards what might come after the end

of a long slow curve of dry stone wall.