We never cracked the mysteries of Pittsburgh,
and Baltimore bled out inconveniently before
our eyes, another nervous snitch knifed outside
the corner convenience store in broad daylight.
Salt Lake City was too pure, too white,
theocracy carved into a wafer of snow.
We grew tired of watching Los Angeles
pleasure itself in the sun like a **** star,
interminably tan and vacuous.
And Chicago was too ******* cold.
So we settled here, where streets turn
the soles of our shoes to palimpsests
where every apartment elevator
offers a wall of infinite buttons
where grocery stores stock their shelves
with bottles and bottles of octopus ink
where neighbors open their curtains
and stand shimmering in moonlight
where weather mixes with nostalgia,
creating immutable, poetic forecasts
where water tastes like redemption
and the skyline rises like a chorus,
so much taller than the cities
we inhabited when we were
alive.