Linda Sue Grimes

In the fog of dream-memory, glazed streets blaze up
From a shelf in my brain:
The rain has not squelched the fire
That rips through the walls of this mad heart.
The stoplights are out again all down Main Street.

You appear out of the rotting corpse of a building.
Your words speed down the sidewalks.
Down through the alley, they sprint.
I cannot compete with your fleet foot. Even my
Dream feet on concrete stumble at every crack.

My thoughts dangle from the crane left
At the construction site. A stranger assures me
That for my youth, many lovers will still swim
In the oceans of my years, and other cities will fill my void.
But I keep hearing your boots on concrete, on hardwood,
Echoing down the marble of city hall.

Keep remembering your fingers in my hair like the wind
That whistles through the apartment complex in Old Town.
Keep remembering the night that lightning struck the lamppost
And you put out the fire with your naked hands
Before anyone even called the fire department.
Keep dreaming in vain of the city after rain.