Alarums and Excursions
Here is the street where we shop for ammonium
and cabbies deliberate over paper cups. They work
the hours of risk from gunshots to breakfast.
When a motorcycle manipulates space to crash spectacularly,
a woman beyond the circumference of wreckage
turns to her man: Why won’t you detonate with me?
We are restless, we travel. We have come to excite
ourselves in a city of alarums and excursions
and experience the voltage of a transportation hub.
Clearly, the insolent equestrian was sculpted
to be defaced as it stands in opposition
to the smoky arrival of interstate buses.
When we leave the terminal, we will leave
something ominous for the bomb squad
since they value only what may ignite.
Alan Elyshevitz is a poet and short story writer from East Norriton, PA. His collection of stories, The Widows and Orphans Fund, was published by Stephen F. Austin State University Press. In addition, he has published three poetry chapbooks: Imaginary Planet (Cervena Barva), Theory of Everything (Pudding House), and The Splinter in Passion’s Paw (New Spirit). He is a two-time recipient of a fellowship in fiction writing from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Currently
