between flaking confetti flash heeled

toes directing attention to a dull ache rounded and tight,

exerting its presence by strumming nerve endings that tendril from the calf up to the center of my chest,

a beat syncopated to the armored earth slapping the flat of my feet
quietly humming

‘I held it all’

threaded between the bigness of extravagant sound it is hard to imagine two songs reconciled to an opinion.

But all traces a lined circle in the ground meeting itself after running long enough for we are ever going back to beginnings in dust waves.

‘and I hold it still’

she says, and for a moment my feet read

a synesthetic history of grief and laughter.

we are sounds colored in cascad

ing quiet remembrance and the earth is drinking our story.

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