Miriam on her bed, drifting away
on strong currents of hallucinations
and Scarlet Fever pacing, unwanted
guest in her small room.
I remember we lost
our way to the funeral home.
The sun was sinking and
Death stood there  
not saying anything.
I remember we kept returning
to Anger Drive, it was
a one way street.
A little girl who was
Miriam's friend said:
Miriam better not
go up there because
the sky has fever
look,

and although the weather bureau had predicted
a dry day,
$$$ fell for 24 hrs
across the dreaming of the poor.
It rained so hard,
the sky lost all its money
and afterlife stocks fell
so low,
Bureaucracy said he would keep track of pennies
deposited on the eyes of the dead
although that money wasn't
working money anymore.

At first we all went horizontal.
It was as if New York had fallen
flat on its face.
Later,
tombstones started to click years
like odometers of runaway cars.
Pine boxes became telephone booths
from which we called collect
friends and relatives still alive.
After each call,
my neighbor's widow
wept guilt and flowers on the ground.
She would stand very still, her precious time
slowly fading into memories of clocks.

Did you ever cross the city,
your shadow so black,
passersby thought they saw
the doorways of night roll?
Did you ever step inside a post office
with the bird of revolution on your shoulder
so red,
that letters written by lovers
flew through open windows
and circled for years
the county airport?
Did you ever lie down on the pavement
of a busy street
and the street became a desert
and the asphalt your pillow?

Some monumental error had occurred.
History had derailed,
a runaway train,
causing the future
to wrap itself around the past.
The reason, some said, was
time fatigue.
There were rumors
sunsets were not really taking place,
clouds were losing blood
drifting East
like wounded horses
and the sun
rolling across cities was
the dial of a broken clock
showing two minutes
to disaster.