Cabbie's Last Shift

I’m sniffing in anticipation of sun-softened tarry spices
Following my pre-dawn funky yawning drunken fare

And of a sudden something final, freeing, winter-bleak
Above the poison tang of cigarettes and raw exhaust

Rises and billows, burning. I am unemployed at once
By the sharp, steely stink of my crushed metal cage.

A dreamtime penetrates, strong yet delicately scented
In layerings: an oily rainbow, blazing plane, my coffee...

This recipe of death as intricate as spicy slants of glass
On the sheared, simmering stove of downtown traffic.

What is left of self caressed in memory of fresh affection:
The embrace of a Broadway baker, her crisp hot crusts...

I, now unnamable, entombed by sour rubble reeking,
am sped through decades and retired in a twisted instant -

Brackish smoke, scorched popcorn and an angry sea;
My shift shaken to an end: the stench a city, disbelieving.