art-time-collective

Consider these men on horseback
mounting a golden ridge in which
everything is perfectly composed,
the anatomy of their stallions
exactly correct and the oil-white clouds
just so. September sunlight
combs their excellent beards.
They’ve rolled the most exquisite cigarettes —
they smoke to die on their terms,
remind themselves of fathers.

It’s hard to say if men like this
ever existed — perhaps, like English kings
or the emperors of Rome, their grace
has been exaggerated in a flatterer’s eye —
but the romance of their habits is not lost on us,
leaning on the window ledge outside the optician’s,
scuffing butts beneath our feet. Any luck, time might choose
to perfect our shapes, inflate this modest backdrop,
maybe give up a good title like Thinkers at Midnight
or Wanderers in the Fog of Youth.

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An acceptable night for the grinders of teeth,
asleep with women’s scarves around them—
their open windows ushering the middling breeze,
which is a little damp and stirs the decent perfume
about their necks; the cars’ sly leaving tune
just before the knowing dawn; whatever
they argue about in rowhouses.

Whatever comes in the brilliant half-daylight
could be fine. They might wake in time. But now
they dream of letters, breakfast, lateness. Warm and decent things.
None of this will be there as they wake, not as they had dreamed it,
which is okay. The sleepers expect an itching neck. After dawn
all the porch lights might stay on, spare light
on the alright street.

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