Intrusive Beauty. Joseph J. Capista

marble antebellum steps give it to me.

      Sure, the pack moves over him like water over

      a stone, holds and obscures him, their blows

      a tide fists cannot fight. On the fire escape

      I look away from this, notice paint flecks

      dropping like they know they’re lead or bags

      snagged in tree limbs filling with their threats

      of flight. I want to shuck the boy from the thin

      shell of my closed eyelids. Some stall keeper

      swings her push broom, hollers at the pack

      to go on home, voice a stroller ramming a wall.