SALT HILL 21, Summer 2008

Matthew Rohrer

EASY TARGETS FOR THE BOURGEOISIE

In a small square room

in the terrible altered state

of Oklahoma, shame,

shame, it rains down

from the sprinklers

*

But the soul out the window

is just self-consciousness

of the birds, the wheeling

gulls in white air,

who scatter, before the jet

*

Where does it go?

It is a television show

switched off.

The whitewashed apartments

stand terribly still

beneath the clouds

when everyone’s gone

*

He was the vital part,

the energy of death,

the choking of it all

in mountain flowers.

Matthew Rohrer is the author of five books, most recently Rise Up, published by WaveBooks. He lives in Brooklyn and teaches in the creative writing department at NYU.