From a Lover of cities:

All these cities I really knew
Each alley and sunrise by name,
Each person’s wrist turning in the right light of afternoon…
What will I do
With all these lovers?
How can I honor them all well now.
Memorials are not enough. Nor poems.
I was never a tourist
I was a lover, and traveler by name.
I touched to know, I saw to believe.
But having been one,
What will I do with all their names
Inside me, by now, like inner tattoos on my bones.
Scrolled and codified with an ellipses on each one…
Like stones that someone placed in an unseen field or on a tomb
Each So deeply spoken, uniquely broken, I can no longer speak of them?!
Unutterable loves, these cities, I’ve known.
Even from my coffin, which is like a tree, where lovers
Carve their names for free
To remember them each by name
Makes me free.