By Peter Burzynski

Yesterday, I breathed in

and spit out metropolis.

 

Each braided glob

of fermented poutine

 

speaking sneakers

(they hurt one’s knees).

 

 

I was huffing the high

bridge all night, only

 

natural that bricks

should spill out. Each

 

street sign softly screams,

“I am the bastard child

 

of bronchitis!?” Hold on.

Let me catch my train.

 

 

Stand clear of the closing

doors, please. Man, stand

 

clear of these bullets,

this sneakster, the broccolied

 

toes of the sleeping man.

The rockster woman avoids

 

eyes like she were a hob-nobbing

lobbyist for the blind. Blonde,

 

I tried to regurgitate the city

for you, but it was broken.

 

 

It clung to slime. The sublime

lemon-lime hiss of orange

 

drums venting the storm —

stroked sewer broke open.

 

A heavy silo. It showed

the world that it once was

 

wise. Dear city, I picked

up two eye patches —

 

criss-crossed, identical.

I walked the street wide.


Peter Burzynski is a first-year PhD student in Creative Writing-Poetry at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He holds a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an MFA in Poetry from The New School University, and an MA in Polish Literature from Columbia University. In between his studies, he has worked as a sous-chef in New York City and Milwaukee. His poetry has appeared in The Best American Poetry, Kritya, Bar None Group, Zombie Logic Review, as well as in the Fuck Poems Anthology with poems forthcoming from BORT quarterly and the Great Lakes Review

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