City Eater

All around us
the red brick houses sizzle
like steaks in the heat,
their layered slabs of rust the
russet grain of muscle, their concrete
interstices the grey fat marbling
the meat.
The gutters seem to swirl
with gravy, and the potholes gobble up
the buttered crumbs that fall
under the table from a cornbread
sun.
The skyline’s highrise incisors
flash, full of cavities a hunger

for the spun sugar of clouds has
fostered.
 One by one
those cotton candy cumuli dissolve
into mirages on the highway’s tongue.