91ÊÓƵ

Now it’s all sorrowful and pleading litanies 
from my useless ghost-like heart and body. 
I know. But I remember what it was to move 
to a city for the first time and to be handed 
fresh towels from my landlady along 
with stories of forbidden love overshadowing 
war from her youth in Guatemala
even if it was just for a brief while. 
And then more beauty, her saying to pull 
open the white curtain by AM’s 6:30 
for the orange bulb sunrise—
like a soft balloon floating among 
polluted traffic and towers.
And I remember my first shower 
in the rusted tub, how I imagined the water 
was the night’s warm rain falling over 
the high-rise hotels and tent markets, 
where I could hear greetings and fish sales
in Arabic. Whatever was said, it sounded 
so inviting, like the swaying of those 
lilac bushes, the shifting of dogwood branches 
in the damp wind surrounding the red rowhomes 
of my boarding room. I love the memory 
of you putting the address and number 
in your yellow felt coat. By then it was February, 
and snow and bell serenades from 
the Japanese embassy drifted through the streets. 
One day we will meet again. Maybe 
on a metro rail, circling above sycamores 
and highway bridges, the one I take nightly 
just to remember what it was to be part 
of the living. And you will sit by me
in an orange seat. When we go through 
the tunnels to liquid-like trance served 
by the lonely and sincerely sad young DJs, 
inside, it will feel like stars lighting 
some new silver water-soaked galaxy.