she says she misses nothing
but she'll miss everything about it
she'll skip rocks over someone else's driveway
and think about the heat that rises
the rocks are sticky to the touch
clinging to her soft palms when she leans
backwards with feet splayed outward
sticking into the grass over the edge of
pavement
night darkness color of the eyes
of absolutely nobody she's ever seen in life
it's dead elvis week in memphis
there is a plaza of fountains nearby
where the water is tall enough to ninja kick;
little kids who recite harry potter fight
the torrents and redirect them
and she shapes the streams in her hands
like stars
are her hands like stars?
or are they just clever?
constellations, reflected in the dirt,
hardly right in the asphalt
lifted palms red with bits of the ground still on them
they bless the grass, they curse
inanimate gods watch overhead
sharing as little as she has
she mixes the orange juice and liquor
for the interesting chemical reaction
between the liquid and a cut on her hand
someone tries to sop it away but
she brushes away his tongue and hands over
the bottle, disgusted in every way
a burning scent of sweet flowers drives her off
to the backyard
what am i doing in this place? it is neither an existential nor cosmic question:
this place has lost all its charms for me, this labyrinth of human smells and vices,
recreational stupidity, i am normality impaired
one place led to the other, traveling
keeping them separate, living so many lives
nobody cared to know who she was to the extent
to which she always told on herself
hurt, broken at her own hands, forgiving self-inflicted trauma
there was no metaphor that was suitable
so she abdicated from the realm of description and became
the omnipresent shadow
loving all, trying
on the last legs of patience everywhere she loved to live,
wishing to topple into life here or there,
torn from both places by something unsatisifed,
she looks at the only places that seem to hold promise:
the sky, the earth, the moon,
the river.