some berlin poems

smoking cigarettes in alexanderplatz:

wondering which wurst
you'll bring home

which mustard:
the uncertainty of kraut

the only uncertainty:
i get to be

the moody one.
you get to cling

to me,
capuchin monkey.

here in a-platz smoking
cigarettes watching

tourists lined up
at the tv tower

up and down all day long
to look over a city

that isn't even a city.
berlin: an intersection

of neighborhoods,
interchangeable,

a legoland
of plastic pieces,

every street the same: a
bakery, eine apotheke

eyeglasses, a turkish
produce stand, but:

every cigarette
in this american pack

is the same,
too, and every cat

in the dark.


..........

when you worked at the food bank:

all that anger
pointed at you
because:

you fed syrians.


..........

i looked like a berliner before i got to berlin

that one thin reed of flesh
could hold this much bile: i've
been told i look with disdain
on everything i see: i fit in
with berlin.