like the hiss and lick and release
from the roof of a stranger’s mouth,
must seek to become etymology running
back to years of lost avenues,
To music and a late morning sky, or
to an afternoon of you
Blessing a stairwell with shadow,
seeing the steps for what they were—a craft
of stone, the points of ants from a wet crack—
not for where they led to, or for who
had been sitting upon them, waiting for exits.
Nostalgia is a poem thing, a thing tongueless
still drawing a name from our veins.
Here I am, there you were,
and what belongs to now can’t be my friend.
For years ago we left our roots
hanging in the air, and today
a blind wind began whistling on my skin.
