The city was burning—or it wasn’t.

I don’t know how to woo you. Lightning

struck the city blind and I was its prophet seer.

I lost you then. And no river took us home.

And no roads lead home. And no market

to market, to buy a fat hog, and no home

again, home again, no jiggity jog. I’ve known

a heaven, like a gate. And you were not its keeper.

I crept, stealthy in my stolen black, a porter

of only your unknown hours. Who you? Who,

seriously, were you? A fawn. A cobalt. A convalescent

in a courtyard in a time before mine.

Whole milk scared you. You cardiologist, you.

What nothing. What nothing undid you in moments.