Batavia Road

The Scene:
Pudgy women stare out
From noontime knitting parties,
Khaki-shirt-tucked-in elderly men in their 30s
Glare through well-washed corner café windows,
Fourth-inning baseball scores hang as sleepy slogans
In the air-conditioned air, and Halloween cardboard cut-outs
Garland September’s front yards.

We caught the commuter train from Chicago.

Our depravities hang like medals on our chests
But theirs creep slowly in the night,
Down pedicured alleys and manicured back yards,
Seeping hand in hand with that silver crack of light
Pouring from second-story bedroom windows.


The Act:
Leave our mirrored tall buildings behind,
Measuring position accurately would disturb momentum and vice-versa
Watch the last stalks of autumn corn wave a slow welcome
The uncertainty also exists in the particle itself, even before the measurement is made
And circumnavigate the glowing cemetery district of northern Illinois.

Drug store dramas and strip mall congregations primp the main drag,
The amplitude for some event is given by adding together all the histories which include that event
Stop light serenades harmonize with the well-tuned hum of Lincoln Town Cars;
Actual experimental results refute the principle of locality
Lean near and whisper in my ear: ‘we’re getting close.’
Consciousness causes collapse