Poetry

reeking of moss & blossom & on the street
i call home, i cannot be sure if i
exist. my thighs press on one another

in the selfie he is currently texting to “Lula Mae,”
the man next to me on flight 4853
to Columbia, dressed in a black turtleneck
and a thick double chain,

There’s a brother who sits over on North University. 
Looks like James Baldwin in a do-rag. Sings.
Is he homeless? People give him money

Like a flock of dispossessed 
in a city of converts, we found our way 
to the Shamrock where the bikers 
congregated to play pool. 

What happened to the city that made us 
promises, promises we had the luxury 
to believe or not?
Night caved its streets, 

Why I thought I needed to rent a third-floor attic.
Why I thought one mattress on the floor, a desk, a vanity

Lighted room. Man and Woman enter talking.

—I mean, we built the world.

—What do you mean?

If we were to go
           if the house fell in an earthquake

if fire, if fire

& in the mornings sometimes awoke so cold
—the wind in Iowa City was brutal—
those days of doubt, those days of troubled land,
that I did not want to get out of bed &