Because you’ll want to know,
What I’m doing is leaning against
the long malformed arm of a live Oak
near the little lake downtown. It has nice
turns of concrete sidewalk. The home-
less don’t talk to you, & the helicopter
behind the great central spume
hovers over only imaginary wounded.
The sign says one complete circuit
is a kilometer and thus the exercise is
of European design. The waddling
herds of Muscovite ducks really
terrify me. Their wattles nearly covering
the black seeds of their eyes, &
the stain of their combination shit
and piss are bucolic interruptions
of the city, warning: beware, animals shitting.
And the thought of giving over your lunch
demands in the seeth of their flipper
feet, the hook on the ends their bills.
Meanwhile, an organized gang of school kids
sets up to race around the pond
just as a line of ducklings marches
to the crossing. One homeless man,
be-do-ragged & scrawny stands arms
out to protect the ducklings. The meeting
of privilege and responsibility. The kids
just run around him, whooping. I’m
still a larch end leaner looking on.
& what about you, watching me through
all this? Aren’t you sick of this yet?
The hoary ducks, the predictable circuit.
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