the city is a museum, haunted, and
every exhibit is your face, and yours, and
me, memories grafted by a hundred thorns,
new skin against the open air, i
tremble with feeling after
feeling, the after, and
why were you so easy to learn
shut my eyes on the train, tilt
my head, and it plays like
a DVD scratched, looping
stammered speech and
trembling lips, anger and
bruising, shut this off
there are a hundred things i want
you to know, but only
one of them matters, not
the flowers i planted in your name,
nor the way i hate every fucking thing
i’m going to miss, just that
i’m going, and
i know it, i know it, i know,
but i go on rambling anyway
there are rivers wrung down
my colorless face, lift my
gaze to find a woman watching,
teary, she nods and i do,
community amidst the roar of
forward motion
home is a lonely finish line,
the soft gold glow, and i
collapse to a rest, love by
attrition, cracked wide open
for the sake of tomorrow,
and you linger alongside me,
so very hard to unlearn
michael king 