18.
All those nights with the on-lights and windows open to the world,
conductive surface a sheath for wandering charges.
Soft-spoken alleyways & shaky letters so boldly burning—but distant, but a hum of
uphill activities, or the wrap-around porch of the addict house
So full of lasts and the casual recognition that comes with last-chance landscapes
and long looks at the sidewalk where one is tracked by ghosts
And how the ghosts thrive on years of sleep so broken.
My folksy fold-out bed, drawbridge pulley chain,
Countertop of blueprints, wormy apples, a carriage with a slight catch
and a lot of people cheering somewhere through the trees.
How precious are the later hours, but also the mornings, for photo face & slacks
and being out of sight, behaving badly, a skirt on a hanger
Ever-crisp and right, the strands of an assigned poem poking out
from the side of something barely real, waiting for you to walk me.
