Loosing My Breath

Loosing My Breath
by Wynn Everett
Once made of youth, these two slabs
would carry my eager ghost
swiftly down the avenue,
up graffitied stairs
through double doors
to a circle of dreamers around a naked man.
Those nights the world was wide,
my pigments rich and ignorant, the slow
drip of sand felt infinite in number.
But tonight,
the opposite side almost full
(which calls for a return)
and these two cement feet
no longer carry but pull
through urban quicksand
as I pick up my bulge,
ignoring the sound of my honking heart.
Block after block until the smell and
taste of that familiar turn, I lower
my knotted knees down,
pressing my ear against her wrinkled
asphalt until the steady hum
of the city’s pant
morphs into scolding.
Not for the one way ticket,
nor even my hunger kneaded out
gently by the countryside
but for the acceleration
of the draining sand
undammed in the hourglass
by dust filled brushes left
decades sleeping in
a hollow can.