Noa Saunders

Up Beacon Hill

Small world, small Boston, like a molar. Starlight and lamplight palette,
the surface curves of the street

curve like a guide for the rain
if it rained.

Walking unbalanced, head front, foot twisted
—age was a hole I fell into

which was like waiting for the show of animatronics to at any moment berate me,
crack out its impositions from a lit window,

and fade to a shallow mystery, but there were none. No faces at all,
just paint, just brick,

no space but the length of a brick. A backhoe loader splayed out,
a colossal scorpion who makes of the brick

chump change or little flecks of wheat. What kind of size
of humans were here?

The doorframes coming down from the street ranged in size
by prisoner type: rusted can & bars type, crippled cold & naked type,

ratman busy with the fleas type, raggedy ann who reads type, so small sleeps in a drawer type,
but there were none.

This is what we get with no history. Gonzo might as well
do his emerging, claiming to be Chuckie D.

Naturally, I do not think I am exaggerating the disjunctiveness
of oh of it all I guess,

of the spinning of houses siphoning themselves off
to the sky, a heavens drain,

of cowboys witching away their anonymity in an old American folktale,
of a final generation mounting the soapbox

balanced on a coin, yes aswarm, yes hysterically.

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Noa Saunders is a PhD Candidate at Boston University, where she teaches poetry, film, and writing. Recent poems can be found in Ninth Letter.