Almost as Good as What We Destroyed

Suspicious movement between cracks—or no, neutral movement, the suspicion I brought with me. I had some notion

about gratitude that no one wants to, needs to hear; don’t cite your source as if there were only one.

Feigned outrage, real idiocy—how do we delete what’s onscreen—someone stuck a foot through it last time. The perks

of taxis revealed as the bus goes over a canal, then a cliff; if it helps to grip my hand as we plummet, you can.

A book with no table of contents, no index— you want to trust that waiting will deliver you to less waiting,

but I wouldn’t. Any vehicle is terrifying when it goes too fast on unfamiliar roads, and by terrifying I mean beautiful,

a fluke of blue and white light. I want to address a Vespa in the second person, want it to respond, but it’s done with me.

Not to be ignored, I invent an incline so steep that when the truck ascends, it flips over backwards. The same

sensation rips me out of sleep; in other words, far too beautiful to bear. A passenger recurs, always

in a difference seat, and won’t adhere to a schedule, but I am too screwed to ask whether

we’re running ahead or behind. Who would know. When I melt this way I relish the cool air forcing

me back inside my skin. Look around, there are fewer possibilities, so let’s call what we do pedestrian, scrub

every other description. We’ve taken wing. I earlier offered you my hand—are you sure you shouldn’t take it? 

Mark Bibbins is the author of four books of poems, most recently 13th Balloon (Copper Canyon Press), which received the 2020 Thom Gunn Award from the Publishing Triangle. Bibbins teaches in the graduate writing programs of The New School and Columbia University, and directs NYU's Writers in Florence program. 

“Almost as Good as What We Destroyed” was originally published in Bat City Review Issue 6.