"Crenshaw, Quarantine"

Crenshaw, Quarantine

Immersed in mist barreling

down Overhill

from Kenneth Hahn, the haze

dense, leaves me as only

headlamp

and heart rate

in vapor

at a sprint

towards the glow

between what

I can’t see

then reds,

flashing cherry tops

on the incline

and what’s left

of three cars

marked off

between flares, we

have to be safe

since nothing

is safe,

and I open

on the downgrade,

seek to stay between steady

and heaving myself

at this chase, the mystery

that each body is,

what a time

and base pairs

and bad odds and

high hopes can bring

to complexes

at a whirl around

what I can do

in murk

rising

under the beam

of my light,

all vision

condensed,

shrinking scope

on what

I can’t see, which is

most of everything,

we are among

and are not

what we

put our eyes on,

the apparent

a trickle, this year

even less,

the mileage put forward

a cut better

than none

to one edge

of many,

the fog

keeps swelling in billows,

curtains surrounding

what I have

for now,

and the green

of the stoplight

where Slauson

begins,

I’m reaching,

might reach,

yellow, this time is

what we wait in

or refuse

to stop chasing, refuse

to stop loving,

still, yellow,

what is left,

what I need to outrun,

what I

count down to,

what I need

to keep finding.