Rising

by Darryl Price

The coin, so little, the watch chain, the youth,
so to speak, each hand, the panic room, the
here and there, the ashtray, the stumps, the distance now,
the feathers, the jump, the radiant shadows, the spine
in gold letters, the arc, the circumstances, the mirrors,
stories, the talk, the torn away grasses, the collective
nouns, the esthetic, the city limits, the next year,
the correct use of the young money's predicament, the
voices, the hell, the hunting of the relevance of
the object, these boys, the light of the lamp,
the bonkers world, the baseball cap, the old pine
trees, the flapping din, by contrast, the most maddening
thing, the darkening apartment bricks, just outside the window,
the lighted fire, the strange smell, the endless appetite
beneath, biting the inside of my mouth, the small
lie, if you insist, the puzzled exaltation of rising.