Bushwick, Jersey Bound

A hundred minutes from home and nothing looks like it used to,

but men on the street say the same things. A guilty relief.

I worried my ring would change things: make me less than myself,

more a collared dog escaped from the yard.

//

The brownstones have fresh facades, already summer dusty, wanting

for rain. Here is the corner that was a bodega, then a crime scene,

now a realty office. I suppose I've shifted, too. Three years of sun

and sorrow will mark a soul or a map. It's all the same.

//

The KFC dumpster still spills chicken bones and tattered skin.

Motorcycles parade, trailing bachata blare and car alarms.

A basketball game is picked up and up and up, and I wonder if the new girl

in my old window hates the dribble trickle as much as I did.

//

The gentry seek fresh land with cute cafes, pet-friendly, washers in unit.

Remember the final scene in the laundromat? Quarters rolling on the floor,

spin cycle unstuck with a kick, the attendant turning the dryer up up up

on delicates tumbling low, trying to push me out. It worked.

//

I live in Jersey now. In twelve minutes, I'll be wiping sweat from my lip

in a chilly subway car, crossing rivers, hunting graffiti and resisting ads.

Seek Jesus. Visit Maryland. If you see something, say something.

The problem is this: I look away, and it morphs before me, grinning.

//

Where did the time go? Why am I newly scared of delivery bikes

when they speed the same on both sides of the dotted line between states?

There's history I knew and unknew and also stuff I missed completely.

I was here. I was here. I was here.