walking j st i am
considering how nicanor parra
finished his poetry readings
with this phrase
i take back everything i said

when i look at the time on my phone
see i am late for work
i pick up my step
& maneuver around the
homeless man who set
up his tent beside
harlow's

but it is a lovely sunny
warm spring morning
absolutely ordinary
but for the gobble gobble
that startles the shit out of me
a large tom perched on the steel railing
of the night club 

gobble gobble again 
& the turkey shifts a bit
as my lame hurried late-for-work stride
makes room for both the homeless man 
& the tom who clucks one more time
when i pass as if he were to say
i take back everything i said