Detroit Riverwalk West

Where
the coughing
white men
in cargo shorts
and this season's
knockoff Tigers jerseys
smoke long cigarettes
fuming
like gestures
toward the older

black men
at the railing—
men
beautifully
slapping the panting
fish

silver
as glinting coins
onto
the fresh
blacktop—

I wonder what it is
they really store
in their cargo pockets

and what it is
they really
aim to hook

there
at the ancient
bottom
of the overheated
automotive
river.

*

For all we aim
to protect or
assail

a final summer arrives—
broken and
motionless:

the summer of
toenails
piling
behind the headboard

of sex frozen
in its
fever

mindless July
snowing in
cellular
flakes

concealing
the 5th grade ulna
splintered inside
the wilted
white cast of
moist
skin

reeking of its own
dank
containment—

there

on the torn-up
carpet of the
once
perfect home

intruders laugh
wickedly

and peel at
our heaven

the rind from
the flesh.