The City hums and you lay your rough palm on the still warm asphalt to try and feel the way it was,
Beneath the rust, nails, and caked on grime.
An elegant grist sighing with the night,
It speaks within the taut voice of the hot, slow wind.
You hear it in your spleen, in your liver, in a deep place without a name;
Things that you wish were lies.
Acid, poison of the heart, words vomited up to die under the cold light of the stars.
Some strike flint sparks on the surface of the mind like half-remembered whispers,
Dust on an old box hidden in some corner of the attic.
It’s a failure of Western philosophy you think,
Shifting feet anxiously.
Fui quod es, eris quod sum.
The dull halogen bulb in the light post doesn’t reassure the way it used to.