I want to climb the curled stairs of
the east end avenues,
listen to the men argue politics,
their words strike off each other like flint,
heat the summer dark.
The women stroll behind, arm in arm,
fill the soft night with their talk.
I imagine an evening snowfall,
big flakes float by the streetlamps,
muting voices, the snaking black
bannisters feathered white.
The streets of the mountain
haven’t moved in all these years.
At summer’s end the old maples
are burdened with the heaviest green.
I climb to the summit park,
look out to the southern horizon,
the city gathering itself
for the next season’s work,
city that binds with
incantations of street names,
lures with sun-burnished church spires.
I need to be leaving, always leaving
the place that claims me.
