THE VISIT
(St. Louis, 2002)

By coming here
I've created
This city again
From its latency
Among my maps
Of memory.

The roads here lead
To old places
In my brain,
Comfortable furrows
Like the ones we've all seen
Etched on grey-matter surfaces
In photos of brains.

I ride roads of memory,
Sweet grooves that long ago
Led me away from here, flung
To the east and then
To the west, spun
In a centrifuge of time,

That led away from the child
First impressioned by the carnival
Of neon lights down on Easton Avenue
Around the Furniture Store;
Flickering phantoms on the TV screen
In our old, dark livingroom;
Daddy's beloved mansmell
And shiny, bald head.

Coming back now,
I open memory's drawer
To find all the storms
That once raged here
Have blown themselves out.
Old volcanoes are quiet,
Grown over with green.

I find a heaven
Where the past
Makes love to the present,
A wholly aesthetic universe—
With the added feature
Of a living pulse.

I'm living a loop-around
Like a metaphysical Cessna
Pilot flying curlicues
In the time-space continuum.

Raising my cup
Of this heady blend,
Looking out the
Picture-window of Time,
I drink to such
Elegant simplicity.

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