Tonight's Poet Corner: Exiting Atmosphere

Exiting Atmosphere
by Belinda Roddie

I flatten these streets in my black
men's jacket, my maroon men's shirt,
my black women's slacks and my brown
women's shoes. I feel like I can take over
the world and bounce it on a string like an
overpopulated, CO2-choked yo-yo, yanking
it off its axis and letting it drop
along the cosmos into the freezing chaos
of a second existence. When I remove
my shades, I can feel the sweat crystallize
on the bridge of my nose. I let the beads
descend to my chin. I am melting
in the bay area summer heat, and I am
merging into a pseudo-metropolitan galaxy
where the noise is all white and garbled and
unable to communicate anything to anyone.