Two summers ago, when
adoration finally fell in
the city by a river, like sunken junk
by a concrete shore,

 

 

  I sung your (now) omitted name
  in my own side-of-the-road
  eulogies, and took whore-baths
                  in municipal sprinklers.

 

 

In trap streets, I took
your mangled hand as
                        I ate nights,
    and glass—
                                  knives,
                            and pills…
 

 

 

Spent mornings
huffing smoke, and smog,—
                            train tracks,
              and little half-truths
under west side overpasses…

 

 

 

  I aimlessly wandered
semi-abandoned
hospitals like the
  recovering dead,
  wore torn maps, and
jagged state lines on my wrists…
 

 

 

                                    Found an
unlikely salvation in
becoming stagnant for months
                        on end.

 

 

 

It was then, and only then
I realized that
starting over is easiest
(when you’ve started too late).

 

 

 

  But when will I realize that
  you no longer stand around every
  obscure step?

 

 

 

        My corner-of–the-eye
ghost holding
a missing part of an old map
I once used
              like the North Star.