~SUSAN ELBE~

WILL COME BACK

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Doubtless this is how we will come back, slouching
through the night with nicotine-stained fingers,
eyes burning for the past. We'll come back
when rat claws of dry leaves scurry sidewalks,
all the signs—taverna, taqueria, el mercado—smooth
as warm rain on our tongues, not the thick dark
forests of old-country winter shaking in our throats.
We'll come back, backyard sparrows looking for stale
bread, but won't recognize what the heart's held dear,
stewed down to factory steam, the glitter of black
gutter-silt. In forgotten open windows, the cold
tin lips of blinds blither. No one we knew lives here.

 

© by Susan Elbe