i traced the course of dead places to
date of completion and names of architects
as if beginning matters as much as
the fact of silt building up on the footpath

the onlooker holds, then disregards
fragile bodies that do not
provoke, or make, or stir
offering direction like
the oldest place i have been is
in the stretches of sameness i did not recognize

now i follow the vanished bridge with dog-eared sympathy
washed down from the catskills somewhere
i have never been

all along, silent, desire seeps through
stacked words like stones, i start telling
splinters
the way i always intended
in the spirit of promise i give them away: