this town is a skin

I thought I shed

like a snake

in the grass.


But sitting above

my old haunts

as if a vault

of old remembrances

dipped in a soft coat

of nostalgia

has made me find

it is much deeper than that:

it still sits in my

muscles, my irises,

and burrows

down

into

my

bones.

someone once told me

to purify fire, one must

wash the flame

and sit in darkness, thinking:

"finally, it's the Brand New Testament

                                              I'm reading."

Tell me everything,

but—hey, wait!!—as you do

start way back at nothing,

*** it's still 'something' too.

AS IF
the curvature
of the
earth
were enough
to let me know
there were another side
to this great continental shore,
a side
long
distant
at which you will soon
find yourself
clasping
the base
of infant trees
and gnawing them
deep
into the soil floor
as if finally
wage-labor
employed its own services
to stave off
the further destruction
of our single biosphere.

"Does distance
make the heart
grow fonder,
or
does distance
cause the heart
to wander?"

All I can say to this is:
I hope that while your body wanders,
my heart will be beating
alongside yours
beneath
the soft blemished skin
of your chest
and as
they hold each other close
below your rib-cage,
you will hold
mine close
as you freeze
and ache
at the end
of an abandoned
back-wood
workday
as if

we can


never



truly leave


each other's

orbit


so

long

as



gravity



persists.