it ends with desire and begins with departure.

We forage to fix an appetite for finality and numb the pain of loss for it has settled into our joints and we are desperate to scrape its poison off the bone.

amnesia is necessary in such pain-flecked procedure and vision blurs into bright lights and a city(e)scape.
we are wanderers in a place echoing our own

thirst for permanence
is quenched in fluid motion.

it is in our feet to caress the curves of our soles and kiss maddening concrete cracks
aging routes mapped by heat and matter

expanding

contracting

expanding

contracting

between deep rumblings is finger around finger, shoulder against shoulder and breath upon breath

this city is an incubator of our undulating chests.

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*note: this is the first in a series of six poems written in and about New York.
all photos taken by the amazing Rachelle Tai