Bronx Flyweight in Drag

Finding your form
is not a form of discipline. He held still
in the bulbs of light
while the shutters clattered & saw.
When he could no longer hold still
he was held still. Afterwards
they left him alone with his life
& there were tears in the low register
heroes use to explicate important concepts.
Hold still,
someone was saying. If he turned to listen
there was a barrel on fire, & if he turned
again & again
there was still a burning barrel & an alley
& nothing else. He thought
when the coaches said by any means
it was an odd way of talking about a human
career. Maybe there was only one means
& one form, one account of everything.
If he moved down the alley
& came out of that crevice—
 
which was a sort of vacuum—
maybe he knew himself. Above, ads roiled
in the wake of single-engine
planes, & in those engines & in the nets
they hung their letters from,
there was form
& discipline. An engine of speech in a net
in the sky.
He turned to go down the alleyway because
it was dangerous,
& because he wanted his good side
to be briefly in the dark.
& at the end of the shuttered light
he held still, & the light also held still.