dwindled to a face unlooking
at him, but at the specter that only is
the crowd’s. The singer is gone.
The singer was theirs. Now he’s fallen
into fragments. The crowd is bound
to itself, becomes a single mind.
This mind listens, waits, but the old
man is not the singer. And the past
doesn’t dance into substance.
But the singer sings the unknown
song, unslipping into the mind that is only
felt by the echoes it makes.
The center of night
stretches into the street,
hugging hovering lights,
the wet air
pummeling the sidewalk.
From this night I arrive
back to where they received
retribution for my misdeeds–
their fists sunk into me, my stomach
slamming into itself.
My mind carries along
to that old school, entering
a windowless room, imagining summer
sleeping in piles along the fence,
the gum-stained carpets
contrived into paw prints.
When I used to lie
in my room, I would turn
to the ceiling, waiting–
it was never calm, now
the night passes through me.
All those things
seem like they never were.
Inspired by the Sunday Scribblings post: Wander.
Andrew Geary 