immediate care,
the sign says,
not emergency,
shades of meaning
too perplexing
for the sick to decipher.
Japanese TV
perched on high
among empty seats
in the area
where waiting is art,
shows Japanese
snow monkeys,
troupes of quadrupeds
with shaggy gray fur
scraping for life,
their hominid faces
rouged by effort,
the same faces
we see daily
in the rust belt,
bitter pickings,
our fruit frozen
half the year.

through iced glass
green slate walkways
saturday night empty
I smoke outside,
make boot sole prints
in flufferous snow,
art arising
from cold urges,
lonely moments,
something inside us
refusing to freeze.

arctic jets blow
silver dust through
halogen lamptops,
making ghosties.
vehicles parked
willy-nilly
between gray walls
of broken ice
plowed in to piles
like bodies after
ethnic cleansing.