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The sushi place near my apartment is suddenly

gone, window sign reading simply, Sorry

It’s closed, and I am somehow hollow and lost, as if

everything around me will vanish, thing by thing by thing.

The sushi place is gone, and I only ate there once or twice

though I always meant to, so it’s probably my fault, or

at least partly my fault, or really largely my fault.  The bakery

is gone too, and the place with rice bowls down the block.

The bakery, the sushi place, the rice bowls, and the place

with ridiculous lamps and couches like spaceships are

gone; the tire store, the car dealers, the parking lots, Ducky’s

Used Office Supplies where I got my green chair, my favorite

dry cleaner with the woman who could fix any tear or

unraveling.  My blocks are filled with so much unraveling,

light posts covered with flyers for porn and meditation;

the things I miss themselves once erased beloved things,

and the park is filled with lights and snowflakes, glow

eclipsing wrappers and needles and dog shit, and perhaps

to live in a city or to love anything is to search for glow

and watch it disappear, block by brick by grain by bulb.


Ruth Dickey is our Poet in Residence for January. 

PreviousLy: "San Jose, Costa Rica".