No Ambition For Dry Pivot

The white man says walk.

The red hand says stop.

We square step with a broom

and two dance with a mop.

I miss my friends; 

the stand up bass

and upright piano

but 

when they play 

I'll listen and follow.

Inside the basement wood joist ribs

of the old century leviathan 

sounding deep under waves of memory

I finally understand.

The headlights in the rain

are flashlights searching for meaning

in place and time.

I however have no destination.

I'm up here,

north of the oil tar skeleton

of the coal Gas Works,

west of the wayward girl-ghosts

of Good Shepherd Center,

yards from the fifty foot explosion

of big leaf maple

and the nicotine stained windows

of the doll-maker's house.

You can find me

with a needle and lodestone,

no ambition for dry pivot

staring at magnetic north.