The High Places

are easy to possess—the dim tunnel

where trains flow, submerged halls

fevered and dense, make it such

that if we go barefoot we will touch

high places, anyhow—or so they

say. Let nighttime test them, then:

the girls decide to go home late,

balancing accounts on their necks

like pearls, singly or in sequences,

almost safe, leaving the last hours

to the boys who reach flat rooftops

lined with iron, not to jump,

instead, burning the ants of cars, to find

again the whisper, this is mine, mine…