I

Jarred

A man
on a curbstone.

Absentmindedly
twirling a feather

between
thumb and index.

The Red Dragon
winding its
body away

from the opera?
Masses

churned,
chanted into
a round frenzy?

The city
in a tumble?

Edged out,
the exile,
finding himself

in a summery
moment,

unwinds.

II

Broken Symbol

A series of poplars.
They wave
from behind

a long rooftop:
kind hands that yearn
to touch shoulderrs.

The sky.

We know
it is with a city hush,
the hoot of a weeping oul.

A painter
arrested here –
fettered feathers

III

Third Dimension

Exile,
as you lounge

on the dry grass
way out on a bluff,

you are the only one here
to behold the two masses

ocher and steel-gray
of land and sea

quietly bracing themselves
against the sky’s  weightlessness.