The works at Georgetown Steam Plant
don’t turn any more
I wanted to show you, love, the now-
quiet place where oil fires burned in the boiler.
I wanted to show you the fossils
of an idealized century.
Cities brighten with power while river
dams shift the wilderness.
Light enters the optic nerve upside-
down. The mind re-forms the world.
See, the salmon are vanishing and
we’re in the closed-eye space,
dreaming of asphalt.
The wet sidewalk under red fall.
My friends have begun to die,
love. I’m at that age.
Iron under my eyes,
no matter how much I sleep.