From the third floor window

across the blackened sky

a string of lights flickering

on the horizon.

No wait,

let me start again.

The name of this poem is

“A Private View of Butt City”

and the lights on the horizon

are Butt City. I want to be 100% clear

about this.  The lights themselves

are not Butt City, but simply

a Butt City, any Butt City,

not necessarily the genuine

article. And the horizon itself

is not Butt City, but

the location of Butt City,

a place where Butt City is located.

And between me and Butt City

there is nothing — no lights

and no horizon — which is scary,

though I know somewhere, out there

the wind must be blowing,

which is a kind of something

even if it can’t be held or squeezed.

What’s arresting though (beyond the lack) is that

Butt City from this vantage

exists in one plane and one

plane only, nothing in front of or

behind the illumined horizon

lying flat like a photograph not yet

crumpled: Butt City from

the guest bedroom in the

cold part of the year.