it’s like yo’ eyesight like yo’ eyes says
a guy walking the other way, and I
know he is not talking to me but I
have not yet disentangled conversation
from the physical proximity of bodies
and I find myself thinking nothing
I know is like your eyes
                                               someone shouts something
I cannot understand from a passing car and I know
it is nothing personal but it pierces my dreaming
and I am still trying to make it out when I pass a guy
in a hazmat suit fishing under the Clarence Darrow
Memorial Bridge while birds I can not identify
occupy high-rise houses made for purple martins
with their voices
                                a tiny yellow bird pursues
a brown one four times his size that does not think
to turn which gives me one more reason
to wonder what would happen if
                                                              still,
it is plain to see there is nothing
like your eyes and no reason
to try to make out what anyone is
saying when everyone is talking
to someone who is not here
                                                     you
see what I’m saying?