Exauguratio - Sonya Taaffe

Do not come back, your face a moiré of shadows
from flurry-winged gulls, your fingers clutching my ankles
with last week's news and tumbling chip wrappers,
telling me in the conversations of strangers
here you are still, still awaiting me.
Do not wake me rapping the windows
with wayward crows, tousle my hair
with a passing train, rearrange graffiti
like milk bottles on my doorstep.
I loved this city before you stole its skin,
signed every window with the wild scrawl of your pride.
Do not come here, pretending to centuries
before we missed buses, built bookshelves, dyed our hair.
This place's heart is stronger than your breaking.
These streets know you are not their only dead.

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From the Current Issue of Goblin Fruit