The city, circa by Sam Lohmann

I don’t know, before cars, had a headache
and had to have some land removed,
wanted to levy and look at itself
on a green welt underwritten
by splayed vertiginous pathways,
a rancid green lake, or “water-butt,”
with roots in the covered reservoir,
settled at the base of the large glass
sky and collected art writings.
The archival nature of this
amputation could itself not
be seen at the time for what it was,
a scribbled self that yawned and blinked.
When it was time to write history
no hard flat surface could be found
—this was the origin of
the present conversation,
begun of necessity in a ditch
under and around a nest of tough weeds
said to prevent erosion, corruption,
unnecessary obfuscation, stem rust and exurban entropy
maybe. The marvelous
blue convolute continues
without having to be spoken of,
surrounds the abscess like a grammar.

The only thing to do they say
is look.
  In orange vests, personnel
maintain the distance. They have no plans,
let a space open up
with hummocks and biased plains
to fool the You Are Here signs.
In the middle distance a corrupt kiosk
has been placed, calls a huddle
to offer information—a torn flier,
a dark stain, a square of gray felt.
The friends I came with leaked away,
I was left holding a damp brochure.
I tried to read what it means to
be standing here. The wind had been stopped.