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.