LAMINATION COLONY: David Peak

    the boy had gritty, gray eyes,
    like grains of salt—
    rounded white granules
    drifting inside a thimbleful
    of soda water, held by a glass
    shaped like a ring.

    strapped to his boney arms
    he wore wings.
    fashioned from rough leather,
    blackened, untreated.
    they flapped in the wind—
    the wind that tore through the
    metallic sky—like the flags
    of dead lands, long-ago times.

    he stood on the sill of a window,
    held the heavy glass above his head
    with the tips of his fingers.
    brown clay pots at his sides,
    their dark centers seemed to explode
    green and yellow spikes of aloe vera.

    four stories below: the street,
    the bustling traffic—red lights,
    yellow lights—all slicked silver from rain.
    he failed to notice the watchful eyes
    of the man in the dark, hazy room;
    the man across the street—
    watching, smoking, waiting.

    when the boy left the window sill
    he did not jump—merely let himself fall.
    the polluted blare of a taxi's horn
    rang through the streets, climbed
    up into my room, filled my ears—
    as if in anticipation—like the shrill
    meeting of two saxophones
    finding the same note.

             -

    his eyes remained open, gray—
    his dilated pupils reflecting the sky
    above him. the sheen of the clouds.
    the hidden, white sun.
    the people came fast, formed a dense,
    sweaty ring around his body.

    they had not witnessed
    the two mighty pumps the boy gave
    on his way down.
    they had only heard
    his bones break.
    the approaching sirens rang out
    like a ragtime band leading
    a parade of giant, squawking birds.