Early Morning

Those people

curled all night on old straw mats,

by what epiphany

do they open their marshlike eyes.

The smell of sleep still crouches

in the corner of the room.

What clockwork

makes them straighten up,

fetching food and water

so precisely.

How much wisdom does it take

to fish a string of keys

from yesterday’s trousers.

What momentum

gets each one on the road,

not missing a single intersection.

I dwell in the morning of reason,

looking past myself.

A river of people.

Not one asks me for directions,

though I never met wisdom

much bigger than a thumbnail.

Steel’s too soft

for what braces them,

striding into the dust of that wounding sun,

their faces straight ahead.

Calamities and felicities

hang by the thinnest threads.

The sun, like a gallbladder,

rises.