A sudden shift in the air
like the coming of rain
teases the forever greedy streets
and sooty sidewalks
littered with forgotten people
and
leaves,

still dangle impossibly between
the dusty walls that
stifle the wind and
fracture the sun
into sharp spikes of light
that slice through panes of
plate glass, their dim sparkle winking
like dozens of dirty diamonds.

I memorize the rare smell
trying to drape it around my shoulders
like a curtain from an open window.

Starved and meager
grown suddenly wild
they’ll soon turn and seek
release in a sudden plummet
leaving
the sharp skeletal remains
to scrape the dry landscape
with branches that claw
the edge of a ravaged city
as if afraid to let go.

There’s little leftover sky
and it’s a dirty dishwater gray,
but most cannot afford the view
and city people need their privacy
so somehow they manage
without leaving.

Those with no money
have less to fear.
Their eyes flicker briefly.
Their faces reveal nothing.
Jealously they guard the
narrow spaces in a decrepit city
that sweeps past them
like a warm bitter dream
tricking the eye away from places
where the desperate are spread thinner
and left to lurk in the shadows of the fortunate.

I stand crushed inside of it
like a wrinkled map
grown soft and hairy at the fold marks
from too much handling.
and not much actual use.

But there’s the kind of hunger woman can live with
and the kind she’s inclined to feed at any price.
And breaking free of one thing
only makes it easier to become
a prisoner of something else.

I crouch instead inside a tight circle of candlelight
my fisted hands drawn in.
Still,
I’m not leaving.

— Steele Fields