Passage clouté

I’ve got a book in my bread named squalor.
You can read it through the crosswalks or perched
on a tree stump like the nexus of a compass
drawn on the corner of a map.

Read the passage where the paper wept corrugated
lead into sweeps of ink, read your name in a tumble
on the sweet current of carpet across the word
for knees the trees whisper as they draw their legs in.

Learn the name for limpid from that crass and vibrating
crosswalk, her stumbling image strobed the standing
man to falling down over his own urgent foot.

The heads of these buildings and telephone poles
peek in to my backpack. In the 7-11, the loaves
of streetwise bread convert to beards like Tolstoy.
That is, just another long concession to giving in.