you’ll miss riding an escalator,
someone told me just days
before my first breath of subarctic air
and bright winter light.
he was right.
who knew what a tippy canoe
this town would be -
what i’d walk right into,
all these stairs to climb
and wheels to spin.
sometimes i dream of the
subway doors closing,
office towers like tall giants
lined up in tight rows,
honking and smog and
a place i’d never met the
worst and the best
all tangled up in a sliver
carved into the shield,
built in rock and stunted pine and
summer midnights of crinkled twilight.
one town,
one man with two sad eyes,
one long endless walk down the
frozen dart of franklin.
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