Poem by Ralph Angel

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Out here everything moves with a child’s hands 
and a heavy stick. 

Where the city stops at the ocean 
and the air 

begins to race again. 
Where streets boil over

and waves 
fall back upon

themselves and cries of passion 
lay down dog-tired 

at the bottom of the sky. 
Every god

who wakes up in the morning 
looks down.

Out here I’ve dreamed an old man
who dreams with his eyes open. 

Where cops
push everyone back

and songs from the cliffs 
fan out

like lace strewn in the bedroom.
Where seagulls

perch upon garbage cans,
unflinching

and children play ball
between cars.

In fresh sprigs of weeds
where people throw 
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their cats away.

Ralph Angel’s latest collection, Your Moon, was awarded the Green Rose Poetry Prize. Exceptions and Melancholies: Poems 1986-2006 received the PEN USA Poetry Award, and his Neither World won the James Laughlin Award of The Academy of American Poets. In addition to five books of poetry, he also has published an award-winning translation of the Federico García Lorca collection, Poema del cante jondo / Poem of the Deep Song. 

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