portland 

i walked through the food truck village 
late in the night. orange lamp glow.
an open yellow-full window. no one else
was alive in all of the city. 
you were elsewhere in a forest
of faces & hair. i was leaving you
for good. i wanted to be 
a phantom. you wanted to be
all skin & warm face.
a ghost sang from a rooftop before
turning back into a bed sheet.
i said, "i want to join you" but the ghost
was already on his way. i knew very little
about the city, only that the bus
would slink by soon & that some corners 
smelled like white flowers & 
that i was a whole country away 
from all my usual haunting.
i wanted to show someone
the sleeping food trucks
but no one else was around.
i decided it would be best
to not take a pictute. who knows 
what kind of creatures an image
might reveal. all those dormant animals.
a stop light heating to red.
a candle in a window. smell of 
dragon's blood. sitting on a stone bench 
i pretended
to be a statue. i imagined
you would pass me on your way back
to our hotel room &
you would not recognize me.
i would stay here forever
until someone saw my soul
in the stone. i am a martyr 
of sadnesses. a single car
shimmered by & turned down
a narrow alley way. a ways away
a couple, leaning all over each other
like townhouses, ambled 
from a crack in the wall.
no, i was not alone.
i took one more look
at the darkened windows
of the food trucks & i slipped
even deeper into 
a city i didn't know. 
somewhere, you did 
the same.