Phoenix

Wrapped in your cocoon I am
safe until midnight when your
streetlamp gas fills the city
with orange haze, and violent
youth picket locks of young girls,
and the howls of desert dogs
are muffled inside garage door
fortresses laced with blue cocaine.

Outside I hear
your faint voice in alleyways, your face
in the dust of a 45 drive-by.
I am surrounded. Overhead,
the sky dims, and the moonlight
is stagelight for riot and revolution.

But since your hands are old,
I will rise and perch as the Phoenix,
jumping rooftops until I burst
in bloom over your city.