When I'm forgotten,
God will scatter my ashes
in the Land of None.

He figured the birds were chirping.

It's a beautiful day, just warm enough in direct sunlight. Squirrels hopped around the fenceposts.

The neighbour boys, splashing and jumping in the swimming pool,
mindful they didn't run around the concrete edges or their father would step outside and firmly correct them. He loved them, didn't want them hurt.

Spring is alive.
Birds are chirping.

He wondered what birds sound like.

A lightning crack. A blinking television.

His hands, like packed sand melted to glass,
rugged and burning on my torso.

Shoveled feeling and lust and gilded
passion. Tears well, a guilty mind
strung up again.

I stop. Our eyes locked. Lost.
Lost, lost. I see lips. Slowly dragging
his head, I wed them.

I pull back. Flashing lights,
blinking television.

The night is young.

the rim-rocked voice bellows
'I was a maid once. On the
Titanic, most famous one-trip-ship
in the history of mankind.
A tragedy. A massacre. And I survived it.'

a shapely cigarette clenched in her jaw
'It was such a magical place. The air
was so static and vibrant. Everything
was bright, audacious, unflinching.'

sound of sirens stabbing through smoke
'And as soon as we were so sure the
world we left behind was quiet, mortality
reminded us of its omnipresence. There were
screams, terrible screeches piercing the beautiful
starry night.'

smell of spoiled milk, sour
'I think God turned his back that night.
He couldn't bear to watch. But He knew He
had to remind us of our place. Somehow.'

the sky is never blue before sunrise

This city I've found,
ruined and beautiful,
cloaked in floating plastic bags
full of pipe dreams and
unhemmed seams. Shards of light
stitch the surface together.

This city I've found,
benign in all it's wanderings,
never sharing it's secrets and
never quite hiding them either:
the ugly walk the streets in
alluring strut.

This city I've found,
sifting through my veins and
pulsing in my head—

This city I've found
that's yet to find me.

All new people
crowding the heavy cage,
dribbling on to West 33rd
in heat.

All new people
mid-mourning, 4am, heartbeats
ring the streets like gong-strikes.

All new people
I've never seen. Faces
who, tomorrow, may
never again see the
lightness of me.

If only your eyes would lock mine.
If only I could stop time, wind clocks
back and back until years passed like seconds,
became nothing more than leaves
drifting in an autumn wind.

What dreams we'd share.
What things we'd see and touch and live.
What fireworks would light the sky.