One more swell now motionless,
Realness from afar,
Drifting pointlessly,
Into a world of dubiety and falling stars.

The apprehension of letting go,
A fount of cognizance and angst,
With advents of dawn,
Seeing through the night, to no more be recast,

A future, said to reflect the age,
Alight, yet dimming anew,
Abaft the scud of clouds,
Burning itself out – the sun that never quite withdrew.

The way that Villard Street composes a tease I take every time,
as if I'll get all the way to Bozeman Creek;
drive my car into the culvert and wash away a year or 15...
Or how the trees on South Willson won't let me forget
the bookstore I loved before, back then--

Back when?
...when it was there. Never mind.

Leaves breeze-swaying/dancing to the rhythm of a laughter
     caught bitter in a swelling throat.

I remember a reminder. 7th & College. I'm not supposed to be here
          by now.
A future my youth had rejected.
     Never signed up for.
There's a piece of my fingerprint removed; it's shaped like
Scott Street--like rain in Osborne Village.

There's a piece of my Gallatin ghostwalk that's the color of Polo Park Mall.
It makes a Province of sense, but States nothing at all.
I'm invisible here.
                                Might be there too.
But my insides--my infrastructure--were built for Corydon Avenue
and the R.M. of East St. Paul.

You-me mailed a promise to me-you back then

     BACK. WHEN?
NEVER MIND.

from this Cat pawed zip code to R2E 1B9 and then what?

                                                          ­been a long time

Been a while for brown eyes to run dry. Drag my blue through the mud on Pembina Highway,
Dry my tired center out and sew me up, I guess, with
   a stitching
of 11th and Alderson. Try to debride these festering wounds
I gave myself, back in Kildonan or sliced open on Bird's Hill Road.

Had long enough to heal, ain't ya?
        I guess I've had long enough

I heard her today, you know—
A ghost of my past

And for a moment I forgot.
I forgot what life was like without her voice;

Clear, high, wavering yet confident,
Beauty slowly reclaiming attention from the inky flaws.

She wore a smile that wasn’t made of porcelain
But still fake, cause it wasn’t really real

For she had long faded, like cotton candy slowly melting in humid air,
Along with the wisps of my childhood.

But for the first time since the fall
The little boy began to dream of skies again

Mía fue, como fueron
míos sus besos;
mía, como rosas y versos.

Mía, nunca fue, pero
suyo todavía soy.

Mía, ya no es, lo sé; pero
suyo seré, tal vez
por siempre, o simplemente por hoy.

I wish I could go back in time and make myself more important to you.

playing catch with conversations
passing our thoughts
on the taste of the sea
and the way things glisten
under the glow of hindsight
this rain, feels all too maroon
and the roads, like veins
carry forward the spring gloom
I dusted off my shoulders
Just for this today
so, we could sit in the presence
of silence, and a quiet peace
with the pattering of a gentle storm
in between each heartbeat
bouncing between words and worlds
throwing out into the wide open
how we feel about time
just as it passes us by