This here is real.

There are no stories

about happy homes and whole hearts

where we come from.

No fancy cars.

We got no big houses but big dreams.

This is crack fiends at midnight,

babies crying, sleeping on wooden floors.

The losses we experience

The victories we achieve…

They become intertwined

With the places we inhabit

As we go about our lives.

Meaning and memory tie us to these places

So that even when we leave somewhere,

There’s a girl that I see sometimes.

She pops up from time to time.

Day to day.

She’s a lot of things.

God, she’s beautiful.

And, isn’t she just so funny?

The fire hisses, flickering,

as it lay encaged by a thick black sheath of iron.

Cloth stockings droop down− bare and bereaved.

Pure, white snow is drifting

down from the blank upper atmosphere.

The gray and white dog routinely scampers