It fades into view-
My home, my vessel, airborne and unmoored.
The city, my body, my story.
A place and a time, to settle over all other places and times
Like dust on a table.
No more than a mote, but I move through these streets like electricity, for a while,
And they are crowded with the living and the dead,
And their stories, buried in the ground, will turn to brick
and rise once more.
A fold in time,
And the years gather together on the shores of this river,
watching a familiar face appear, once more,
against the darkening sky.
Same eyes, same hat, same words in the mouth,
hands folding yellowing paper-
ancient secrets, simple spells, still hidden, still crumpled, still lonely.
Turn the pages of the night,
a black book on which silver ink glistens, tracing shapes twice forgotten-
A bird, a flight, a wilderness before the flood.
Backs turn as I walk by.
The city, our stories, our darkness,
A gathering of elements on the horizon,
Fire and ice rewriting the boundaries of our loneliness
While we stand in doorways, waiting for the storm to blow over.