The Starting Line Poem by RIC BASTASA

it is when air feels like
glass
which looks like a mirage
which flows like
rivers
which branches like hands
which touch no one and have
become
walls which
negate itself and turn
into a
sky
which regret not having become
birds
which
hate wings and flights

it is so crowded like a forest
and beneath are worms
eating
rotten wood
which has become more of
a boat which
wishes that it were nothing
but an
ordinary human coffin
which shall be buried
under the grass which
without change shall rule
the earth