I carried you all over town.

I carried you all over town.

I carried you through the east village, 

and whispered,

these are the places I would go,
the park where you could score
big drugs in the eighties, now
filled with bilingual children
a community garden &
mutts kicking up dust in
languid clouds that
settled into their pelts
dappled with dirt
freckles like the ones
you had in late August,
& we connected the dots
finding symbols between
those imagined lines.

I walked to the top of the island and
stopped on the peaked rocks to see
the rich folks from afar, whispered
the graffitied messages spouting
an eternal end, the low hanging threats
painted as a last resort
protesting the end of protest
hoarse voiced and weak after
years of being told they won.

And nodded off to dream sounds in a basement
once full of our nation's greatest dissenters
now sated by a class
believing in thirteen minute drum solos and
the value of a college education
Never having eaten baked beans from the
can for the love of an idea,
they have to hold onto something.


I carried you all over town
and then I let you go.

among the first wildflowers I found
speckled sunlight like you wouldn't believe
old high rises at either side
the river to your back
& quiet guitar floating over the hill
singing,
she is standing right in front of me.
speaking words of wisdom
let it be


I watched the sunlight catch the
most minute parts
before the wind current
bore them across town.

your shadow on my hand
our last day spent
as compensation for stolen time.