I want the world as a bakery
balanced in tree pose on downtown’s right hip.
I can flick a few ovens, string up some gold light,
and voila! Ambience and ambrosia.
I want the world as a penthouse,
unlike the gastrointestinal lurch of old tudors,
mine boasting ovals and royal bar stools,
though with the metal floor’s talon glint.
Look, it will smirk, we can be both savage and serious.
I want the world as a state park.
Ponds, curves, rain cubbies,
and lazy fish flashing big eyes.
I’ll get to it before rectangular executives,
all selling salaries like Yeats sold lake willows.
Without threat of threat, what’s left to argue over?
Benches, and how best to warn guests
of the male wood duck’s rage.
I want the world as a night club,
my guests falling like two-winged samaras.
I’ll sweep the tile, set up the sound,
and tack lights bright as anglerfish bulbs.
The first night, desperate, they’ll marvel,
survivors with nothing left to do but explore.
I’ll pour drinks in two-wristed dance
as night’s benthic waves twine and prance.
I want the world as a historical:
those houses that aren’t houses but kiosks
super-sized, with gates the shade
of Poe’s black despair.
It will be every color and every style
of brown, red, and off-white, that is.
Who cares if it’s meant for pomp?
It’s my own, and I own it.
I want the world accessible
as a realtor’s number on a bench.
I want Prime-shipped sentences: pre-packaged, compostable,
giving 15% of profits to endangered tropical species.
I want the world and I want to be good enough
to never be kicked out its back door.
I want to not have to sit, while I’m on hold,
and think about why I want what I want.
The cobblestone beneath insulation.
The char built in ziggurats on the oven’s floor.
I, hang on—
yes, I can check the property first to guarantee?
Sir, I should never enter the sentence systems myself
to manage that which has gone wrong.
Sorry. Business.
Where was I?
Sentences, cobblestone, foundation.
Because, in the end,
I want the world and its belongings.
I want the world.
I want.
