A north wind sings the fence around a lot full of debris,
near the corner of Memorial and me, where resurrected brick
and drywall leap back into place. There’s a terrified reflection
of my face all alone at the gleaming knife display in the
Army Surplus Sales, as the dusk descends and my inspiration
fails, and ghosts fill discount parkas, sleeping bags, peer
at me from the crumpled dark. Inky bruises are punched into
the sky by bolts of light and then leak across the body of
tonight, while rain and thunder drop and roll, then stop
short of a storm, leave the air stuck with this waiting to
be born. As I stand before an unresponsive automatic door,
just another door that won’t open for me anymore, the EXIT
red gets brighter, then blinks off, and presses me into the
crumpled dark. There’s a billboard by the highway that says,
“Welcome to/Bienvenue à,” but no sign to show you when you
go away. And our demolitions punctuate all we mean to save
then leave too late, so I’ll make my shaky exclamation mark
with a handful of the crumpled dark.
