Maybe these Niches

Chris Arigo

1.

A few stray coils of razor wire twist
from the dusty expanse
& occasionally a bird falls
from the sky---I sweat dirty rivulets,
my skin is charred & maybe it's my fault
that this world's been reduced
to a few old men in dirty fedoras
& tattered pinstirpes walking invisible dogs
or those novelty leashes
that just look like they're walking dogs
that stop & sniff an mummified
corpses of birds, the occasional toothless skull
---a very convincing display.
I almost believe nothing's worng.
We invented a game like tetherball
& string leashes from scaffolds
of rotting girders but someone always cheats
& the games breaks into vengeful,
skulking groups. A gnarled tree
juts from a rusted mulch of nails & wire---
we even distrust its shadow.
Maybe it's my fault that
the nicest places here are oases of petrified
tree stumps & trickles of brackish water
that disappear the moment
they seep to the surface.
Rain never reaches the ground,
but hanges in sheets. Dust colors
the horizon on oxide hue
& lines our throat with sandpaper.
We taste pennies & swear they are delicious.
We pretend to swim in scaly creek beds
and fissures that criss-cross the plain.
I tire of enduring dirty looks
in fields of dead machines
that no longer look useful.

2.

It could be my fault that
the ecology here is no more complex
than a few roaches, birds
that I never actually see flying
but that fall as rain might
---that is, if rain ever fell---
which at one time it might have,
thusexplaining the evaporating
water that even stones don't taste.
We insult each other with shards
of jasper & obsidian.
Adversity unites us in bitterness---
we take pot-shots at the moon
to deflate its phosphoresent skin.
Still uncertain, we run in circles,
time passes in arid metronomic waves.
Any moment the hazard of jus living
could become malignant,
any moment the hazard of just living
could manifest as a tumor or rash
We swallow our tongues, our hackles taut
& we're dragging ourselves across nails,
screaming from our throats.
It's possible we've already died
but it's never occured to me until now.
I'm scared to ask---I'd just remind
the men about their weighted tongues,
that their lips are too chapped to speak,
that they bleed from every pore,
that maybe we should've voted after all
or signed those petitions of something.