emerald city

knowing you are not home
is a much clearer feeling 
than knowing you are.
i once stole a door knob & carried it
to emerald city. placed it on 
every possible passage, hoping
it might give way to a dining room.
dinner is being eaten wrecklessly somewhere.
a broken bowl is being pieced back together
but it's no where near the same.
no one was home. no one at all.
the city gleamed like a necklace.
every corredor shone & i called
my own name just to watch it skip golden
from alley to alley. no one moved.
it is possible though that everyone
was just hiding from me. cupping handfuls
of their favorite jewels. no one wants
to share their glitter anymore.
i know i don't. i left handprints
on the torsos of the great buildings.
followed the streets in their arabesques.
took a dead trolley all the way
to the castle where even sound
had a particular green. 
have you ever needed someone 
& watched them vanish?
this is what happened to me in the city.
i craved each precious corner.
souls in their washing machines.
shoe stores without ankles.
recycling the bottle 
we once kept the moon in. 
kings enough to fill centuries.
then, there i was. a girl 
so far from her gender that she could
hold colors under her tongue.
so many kinds of green. 
followed the smell of corn husks 
until i came home. nothing at all emerald.
people moving about as if 
there was always somewhere to end the day.
as if nothing at all 
was ever green for them.