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I A Cosmopolitan Avenue   …where a girl pretends the whole city is dead She is too old for games like this one, but she indulges herself anyway, dangling her legs from a low structural wall outside her parents’ house Sunlight moves across her knees Her eyes and scalp itch with hay fever She’s been eating too much dairy and her guts don’t feel well   In her fantasy, the project of living turns predatory and meaningful The population has almost disappeared but buildings and infrastructure remain, jutting from the landscape like the bones of a carcass She says, nearly in prayer, ‘This is the future’ An annulment of time There are no other countries There is a yellow star but no sun, a white rock in the night sky but no moon No evolution, no smart, no stupid, no college, no virginity, no cellphone, no money, no exercise Strange, windy new gods blow in and she announces their names from the highest empty skyscraper Scraps flicker along the empty streets Wild dogs hunt in the streets and sometimes she feeds on the carcasses they leave behind She has no family and no friends Without them she moves as sexless as thought, eating, sleeping, and copulating according to need, devoid of expectation, just a shape among shapes Her body hardens with muscle and instinct She imagines herself with a boy’s long back and long hair A flat chest   But in real life her breasts, already pendulous, stretch-marked, are growing larger She is smart and overweight She gets out of breath going up a flight of stairs Friends have lately taught her to smoke cigarettes and drink gin out of a plastic bottle She has never touched anyone else’s privates Sometimes, at night, she still frightens herself into hearing her own name when her parents aren’t home   In real life, it’s a Thursday, 11 am, mid-summer, and she has chores   Store: Eggs, eggplant, dish soap, kitty litter Money on fridge Bathroom: Clean sink, scrub tub Love, Mom   The two bills—ten and twenty—fit neatly into her back pocket She walks along the avenue towards the grocery store