there just around the corner walking slowly
lost in thought then pinned to the moment
pierced by a colorful scrawl of graffiti
the fading paint of a decrepit window
the sudden white of a stranger’s smile
if not for these that hold me
I would disappear
identity discarded like an unwashed shirt
left to be trodden into rags
by feet and wheels and jagged claws
some few memories glittering on the pavement
a hint of laughter smeared on the curb
every Sunday I walk down these streets
these streets marked by your absence
these streets empty but filled
full to overflowing with you everywhere
I see you where you’ve never been
on the corner waiting besides that one broken sign
in a tea house standing patiently beneath a neon cup
at a bus stop sitting disdainfully on a dirty bench
you had left where we lived before
to make room for something but I never knew what
now that I’m here in a city we never dreamed of
I find you back and back and back
tears burn just as much in this place
there is no city where I’ve loved you more
there is only this room this one room
where I never held you at night
never watched you stretch your elegant limbs
never heard you at the door waiting
and yet you walk beside me down every street
knowing that strangers pause at your beauty
ready to comment on your striking eyes
throwing compliments down around you
as you move through these with dainty mien
I follow with a foolish contented smile
my heart tethered firmly as you lead
every act at once both hard and easy
opening a container of olives has equal weight
with transferring official minutiae
layers upon layers before access to both
one click recenters the bureaucratic world
no opting out
even the wealthy suffer daily frustrations
they can’t outsource their lives entirely
and the simple life is just a myth
a lucrative means to sell some lies
maybe land that can’t grow a thing
try workarounds numbing agents
a digital detox the opposite deep dive
zombie walk through the streets without looking up
you do you
I can’t help but laugh at the silliness
sometimes cry at the same
it drifts through the sky
unnoticed just one feather
a thin blade of gray and white
severing dreams strung across the alley
with the edge of its fall
those below turn in brief restlessness
and when they walk the streets
finding the colors of their night
thrown into the art of a wall
or pasted with the signs upon a pole
leaving them vaguely anxious and uneasy
without knowing why
the bird wheels and turns overhead
in a rooftop garden a person sits reading
every word that I write appearing
a ghostly flash across their screen
a momentary digital overlay not even noticed
until years later they find themselves
remembering these poems as their own
inscribed into the wrinkles of their flesh
etched into their every bone
I travel the desolate highways
that run through the smallest towns
to transform for a minute into Main Street
then fade back into their nondescript route
the uncertain focus of dirty headlights
are the only shine in the night
the moon and the stars absenting themselves
from the unrelenting dreariness
lest they too turn drab with grime
or get tangled in the rusted barbed wire
hanging from an abandoned fence
the smoke from a cigarette drifts from the car window
and gas station coffee stains the vinyl seat
as I drive
I did not want to look back
and say with regret
that I never walked in the rain
too afraid that the water on my face
would remind me of tears
and I would cry in sorrow
that I never stood in the wind
too fearful that the buffets on my limbs
would feel like punches
and I would collapse from their hit
that I never moved within the fog
too frightened that the murk around me
would become like a nightmare
and I would never emerge
so I have made certain to do these
and more
I’ve not looked enough at this stubborn mind
that throws a self like a shadow against any possible wall
that chases after every shiny thing
not seeing its own tawdry glitter spinning in a mirrored disco
that imagines it is the sun and moon
rather than a distorted reflection in some temporary puddle
I’ve not sat enough in the quiet opportunity
and just let myself observe this weather
the changes in the sky and sea
the shriek of the gulls and the howl of the wind
the vast spacious silence
