for me it was a city

& when I finally returned

every footstep on the pavement

pulled me back further,

breathless, my ear pressed close

to its raw & ragged heart

pumping its familiar rhythms &

its hungry smells

underneath the skin;



desperate standstills

& I felt relieved to be small again

revived with the power

of the surging bodies

neighborhood pizza &

screaming tires on cold avenues

sirens & street cats wailing harmonies

sharp steely days of poems & solitude

drinking jugs of cheap red, downtown

in someones damp basement,

or staring out the window

of an uptown ghetto high-rise

mourning to a guitar,

every pluck of the strings

weaving memories,

sending shock signals of a pure

& bare-boned ache,

sharp as a slap

jarring my body & brain

when I remember

were disconnected now,

& Im dismembered, just a flower

tossed aside to wilt & dry;



no more days of gaining strength

from its afternoon shadows.

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