PAT Still Life #3 (77D)

HIGHLAND . . .
FRIENDSHIP . . .
to DOWNTOWN . . .

scroll letters green like
the unsettling radioactive
warmth inside me
while the bus plies a
tunnel of morning snow
fringed in white
(draped in white)
the green letters monotonous:

HIGHLAND . . .
FRIENDSHIP . . .
to DOWNTOWN . . .

and something is lost
to the dry coughs
and wet sniffles
of fidgeting trench-
coated camaraderie-
proof polloi
today:

HIGHLAND . . .
FRIENDSHIP . . .
to DOWNTOWN . . .

a grade-school art project:
create perspective using
construction and wax papers:
discover and reveal in a burnt
sienna rectangle of coarse-
grained stock the jagged teeth
of a mandible mountain
and affix it to a white card-
stock backing:

HIGHLAND . . .
FRIENDSHIP . . .
to DOWNTOWN . . .

hinge to the top of the card-
stock a plumb rectangle of wax
paper to drape the far range
in an illusion of depth

and repeat:

construction paper jaw
wax paper curtain
with each layer
the furthest range certain
retreating into hazy conjecture:

highland. friendship. to downtown.