Canal, Park Slope (Jan. 03?)

The canal has been filled, above it rise the dead
with needles stuck in arms or wielding pick-axes.
The markets sell desiccated fruits and flowers.
Public transport moves almost to a standstill.
Across the river, how littered the fairground is.
An imitation of a very famous person sings
cover tunes to a crowd, all friends of friends.
Above the canal, junkies unwind Ace bandages
and dangle them from the branches of trees
like pennants hastily fashioned from toilet paper,
and in the lofts, one prestigious avenue across,
artists no one will ever hear about again
paint willy-nilly green bucolic slashes
they first became enamored with on billboards.
The subways move like cattle-cars stranded
in stranger countryside, and the commuter
who dares to pick his nose will elbow the belly
of some pregnant woman or wobbly octogenarian
who wishes already he could straggle the desert,
some scirocco arresting his slo-mo progress.
But since hell is other people, he doesn’t mind
the time it takes to be summoned to the present
as the E-train halting, shudders, no express possible.