I sat in The Square, surrounded
by throngs of skaters, sesh-heads
and other humans out on the town
for Skate Culture night.
It may be
the last dry day of Autumn
in G-town.

You chat with familiar characters
or familiarize yourself, you hear them
trying to sort, mulling over their situation,
Lamenting their day-jobs while trying to avoid
the reek of mass public intoxication. Every weekend
thousands of pandemic drinkers congregated here
and summer's not quite over

so long as it's dry outside.
I watch people skate, I wonder
what's this feeling mean?
This brief, fleeting recognition
as I scan the crowds, pick out faces
from the inhabitants of
my home city.

It is not sonder,
They are not random passersby,
Their lives' complexities are known to me
having grown up around them. To know a town,
To be able to look around on a night out
and recognize so many faces;
Some insatiable nostalgia

even though I am at home