public

looking for the public –
this eye in my chest that blinks and blinds –

Steps to a tower in Bogotá –
emblazoned with gold plates that warn, “ private property”
as a city tramps to the very top

A violet orchid in the botanical gardens whose scent teases –
cannot be captured

Honeysuckle vines carefully tilted and turned
that lilt from a neighbor’s wall of bricks –
eight feet with festive colored glass glaring, aching, from its rim –

what is public in any of this?
in the hand that shoots
unthinkingly, from her waist to steady the stumble of another

in the approving glance of a man etched with years,
still welcome for its open gaze

in the heart, (product of a black science fiction writer’s pen)
that leaks, chary and charred, with every tear the world lets fall
to the earth –

what is public in all of this
or – what is not?