after and the day beyond that
day and all the days,
chairs stack up in silent
restaurants, bicycle couriers carry
on past hire kit cooling it
by roadsides here as elsewhere
young men are made to frogmarch home;
we brace for the apex that never comes or comes
over and over until we are blind
to horizons that flatten like the hours
minutes seconds unfurling like a field
of unanticipated loti, drawing
up the dirt of [select big C] culture while
children kiss the screen,
and the rich keep on
keeping on
day after
day
after
day –