The clock face mouths the words
More, more
As its hands twist past 2
Neither of us sleepy
But ragged, like its vocal chords,
the dull roar of tequila soaked cochlea
Bells struck with a muted hammer,
Ringing out the sound of the town below us
Utica
And all 60,000 of the working poor
Who never amounted to enough
Courage to leave
Their rust belt high school pregnancies.

It’s the sound of complicit silence.
.
Seattle staggers on
Wilting all winter without the sun
Struggling to grow nice and tall
Inundated by the influx of transplants indifferent
To the waves of overdoses
among the homeless
Curled up underneath cardboard boxes
Emblazoned with Amazon’s blank smiling face
Shivering against a cold
that’s just warm enough to not outright kill them
in another city where ignorance passes for compassion.
A stone’s throw from the hostile architecture
of Queen Anne’s mansions.