Gait Signatures

Enduring freedom

just turned a corner

like a picnic interloper

skilled in shindig

like a diving bird

with notes of ivory

alive within

a century of throats

like an insouciant suitor

oozing chutzpah

in vast trajectories

of tongue-tied sounds

like a soprano of the flesh

on two continents

or the monumental ice in Stuttgart’s

luxurious seaport

and while Monroe enjoys

gulag maneuvers

Andean sun-worshippers plunder

Iona’s etoile moguls

supplementing splendor

with parched aspects

of the sea of tranquility

like the NFL

made peevish

by female roughnecks

seeking Bowery derelicts

London rubbernecks

and gung-ho

pillows

in a wilderness of

buckwheat mush

to form the center

of an arty party’s

endless source of energy

like a pagan blunderbuss

at home with a drone’s

next hoax

like a star in the axle of the ear

like a nimbus portal

like a princess with a vinous touch

translating the lemming’s inquiry

into stammering oriental specificity

like products of asexual reproduction

in Wisconsin

thespians

of unusually heavy youth

brainstorming the abbess

the gardener’s adobe ho

and her peculiar food regimen

like an escapade of neck feathers

a case of lucky legs

a bohemian deemed seemy

in cowboy argot, and

oh, unsightly cuckoo

my impossible dream times thirteen

what happens when happiness

comes first

its negligent candor

like a zeitgeist anchored

by a famous refrain

about free agency

like sleeping pills in lieu of food

like the happy vignettes

of “That’s Entertainment”

as uncertain thresholds as

gait signatures as

alternative means of transport

like eating bad food and candy

or goofing on Jimmy Durante

in ways that impose order and meaning on actions

as mundane and comforting as

washing cups at sunset

then walking alone, slowly, in the long twilight

wrapped in a blanket

in a way that apes the ancient

regularity of nature.