with a monk's silent sermon,
the dyes of memory run and fade.
all that crying in the rain, for the
concealment of tears.
charging the deepest and darkest alleys--
where rats drown bucking their teeth
for air.
i remember you kept creating new
flowers, nailing them to crumbling
walls.
calling them odes to your city, revolving
fast enough for change.
you kept climbing out of yourself, to
inspect the efficacy of emergency exits.
all those lag times through them, negligibly
deemed safe.
we wondered at holding hands able to
part for a passerby.
theorizing until we could not unify the field.