Have You Seen Him?

Chicago
threaded through your city
longing in lines unspoken

Have you seen him?
Walking down Sheridan drunken in his splendor
Why did he go away?
I am lost without him here
I crawl belly down on the street
inching along, a snake in the city
shedding my skin in a long trail of what was
new skin so tender etched
with swirls, spirals holding
a denisty of things that could have been
if only
these words rise in silent echoes
from beneath, from below
from what is underneath
and a street battered by the weight of cars one after the other
in succession, a line stretching as far as the eye can see
does not weep for those once here

This is a city
slanted with a thickness of the breathing
of breath, in breath, for breath
of dreams unbound
of things unencumbered
the dead walk bound by things
the living cannot know
a ghost I cannot hold him
his flesh is emptiness and sorrow
I touch him, love
set him free
He is a drift of smoke
disappearing before my eye

when the night
when your night falls
it is held within a breath
that separates before and after
and what can no longer be