i must complete
this morning's traditions,

smoothly as best i can,
transition the dead bolt turning.

there is the feast to
prepare,

eulogies to compose
to heroes frozen to the floors
of transit points,

vast blue-iced miles
alter nothing

no amount of looking can change
the distant truth

that these wrinkled traditions
possess us

like great white birds flying
to siberia,

i am old here without
your tongue

it is foreign,
as foreign as yours and mine.