new haven

i have a tendency to chase them out
with chance encounters where
we reflect on celestial kisses
and symmetry and how stars shatter
before shivering and recently with them these
ghosts i survey what was never ours.

i climb to rooftops where i slip
under wet steel barriers between
quips about necks and lips
to stare at a city submerged in fog.

it is a fog that blurs its spires
we tell ourselves while we talk
(yes it is that kind of city).

it is here that a roof becomes precarious
in the way that only a precipice can
and we grow too close to the ten story
limit, telling and telling and telling.

chayefsky is with me from floor thirteen
to the lobby, while i dream of fellini
and screens and and all the years between
and my mind drifts to a fall - nothing
serious. ziggy just jumped off the roof
at a wedding. two storeys and
all he had was a cast and ziggy
is just a white dog with a neon cast.

our thoughts and words, our vision
hazy with the fog, spiral
in admiration of the prestige our
city never attained (acid weakens
does not strengthen stone structure
and you cannot reinforce the past
with steel) is what we learn
in and around the silences. we agree

sitting on parapits stinking
of damp tobacco. we stare at cars
that circulate a roundabout parking
lot, down and down and down.

this is my city, or was
caught in a hairpin turn
several ivy miles
from the buckle of the rust belt.