cartographer

yesterday i saw the ground wound
there used to be a snaking tree there.
solo in an urban desert,
a bulldozed city block,
it caught the
busker's songs trumpeted to its shaking leaves.

and here is the table where Will sat
textbooks in tow, believing in bohemia.
here is where i walked with Frieda that morning on the green leash.
here is where you stapled single sheets of poetry.
here is where my stomach wrung itself out, having seen Michael.
here is where they pricked our fingers and licked our blood with paper.

here is the art gallery with the painting speaking, "SORROW."
here is the movie theatre where i cried to a friend, now a stranger.
here is the parking lot where John lived on the tenth floor.
here are the crosswalk's white lines and white light that used to mean i was safe.
an amateur flâneur, i draw mind maps and mark exes.

the tree is gone now,
close-shaven to scoop craters out of the city's face
and build an expensive new zit,
ready to burst.