The smell is crisp first, to match the leaves
But dark fruit rots in layers underneath.
Hugging concrete, the salt and pepper screen

Of a sky lets up a little. Men stop
Mid-march, to breathe the fruit in. Indulgent
Snorts of fruit-rich air, plump as summer sun,

Inhaled before diving under a tower.
You buy a house, then avoid its old clock-
Counting only clients on a time sheet.

You live as if you're dying in a minute.
Parched, crackless faces of chalk frame the old
Window. You're looking at more windows. Black


torrents of typeface replace your children.
Their names are but keys in a safe, bound tight
By a lock in a gilt-edged solvent bond.

'Daddy' is a word tossed around, a bright
Shiny coin to feed them with. How silly.
How impressive. Your hands age. Before long,

Your heart. The climb is rank with stranger's sweat-
A hot-faced CEO cooped up in the Bahamas
While you and the leather bound briefcase sit.

And wait. Buried beneath the earth it is.
Gravity. The throbbing, soundless weight of it
Swallows you down. Following the stone

Through crusts of red earth, to your signature.
A name and digital dynasty left
in your wake. And the vultures come to cut

Eachother. A small boy lines the estate
with white handfuls of light,
indiscriminate
ash.

And the plum trees stick their roots in ochre
Sucked dry. Their vines, from emerald fade slowly.
Beige leaves, the pale feathers of a bird.

Get out of its way.