M.P. Powers

The Motherfucking Boat

a moonfaced kazakh girl displaying
much cleavage; a lank-haired liverpudlian 
of noisy clattering tongue; 
a spanish dj offering african chants to jupiter 
and jupiter responding with a late-night summer 
thunderstorm, the lightning glittering 
in the waters and dancing around the boat like fire,
then following you off it, leading you splashing 
along peachblue cobblestones past neon
burger joints the sleeping u-bahn station
a man with missing fingers lighting a cigarette 
raucherkneipen ugly pre-war buildings 
squatting in the bowels of pink crepuscular dawn. 
it’s 5 a.m when you get home, some crumbling altbau 
in neukölln, the walls eternally damp from the swamp 
this city was built on, a mildew odor rising 
from the cellar, a toilet you can only get to 
if you walk through the shower. you do that, 
careful to step around the puddle that forgot 
to go down the grate, then crash on an ikea mattress 
and wake four hours later, a colony of bees circling 
your head, your hearing eyes
listening to invisible fingers 
roving over a keyboard somewhere. you curse 
the ceiling, look to the floor, observe the damp 
pile of clothes that wore you last night. 
and suddenly you become conscious 
of your thick animal tongue and broken mind. 
is this you? or is this the universe 
happening to you? do you have anything 
to do with any of this at all? you close your eyes 
again and listen.