Poetic Distance 

beneath the concrete foundations,
and the brittle surface of our lives
are veins that carry what
powers our culture 
and its residue of waste.

beneath the vessels that sustain us,
be they full of wine or song
is the very substance, made of littered ground, 
upon which we had hoped to build 
the very dreams which slay us,
though we find them full of 
hot air and steamy breath 
of the twentieth century and beyond.

love and hate seep up 
through the asphalt flesh of our lovers, 
whose promise, now decaying,
is preserved as best we know how 
in a wax museum somewhere
in an old northeastern
cultural graveyard
where we all become caretakers 
of each other's broken hearts 
by sustaining poetic distance,
knowing that if we touch each other 
we will die. 

Richard Summers

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