NOCTURNAL CARTOGRAPHY
Stop assigning the streets
meaning, as if there were
some ideology behind their turns
here in the middle of the night,
closer to sunrise than sunset,
no map designed to find
that one item to crack the code,
a conference of clues all just
to lead you here, alone,
walking like a busted street lamp,
playing detective with no mystery
to solve, truly, only to find
the presence of three possums
and a disinterested cat, coyote
warning flyers taped to a stop sign,
to find a cardboard shipping box,
never taped shut, and inside,
an organ--for reference,
a man’s heart.
Robert Krut is the author of four books: Watch Me Trick Ghosts, The Now Dark Sky, Setting Us All on Fire (which received the Codhill Poetry Award), This Is the Ocean, and The Spider Sermons. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Gulf Coast, Passages North, Blackbird, and more. He lives in Los Angeles, and teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Further information can be found at www.robert-krut.com.