places you used to walk, by Keira Deer

.  .  .  god-like, I’ll admit, as if I might
pick up traces of gold as I stretch to fit
my footprints into the years-old craters of yours  .  .  .  
their dirt rims caving in  .  .  .
down Pearl Street: the bar
where you sat  &  drank  &  kissed
the open mouth of a beer bottle,
the condensation running down
the webbed skin between
your thumb  &  index finger
.  .  .  where you turned twenty-one alone
under the shadow-arc of a mountain  .  .  .
or else: the Boston Common  .  .  .  the banyan tree
on a big, green lawn  .  .  .  the streets you walked
in search of alleyways to smoke in  .  .  .
what’s left of us now is an ellipsis  .  .  .
infinite  .  .  .  I step along the empty spaces
between the places you used to walk  .  .  .  you,
once a god to me  .  .  .  now,
a dirt rim caving in  .  .  .

–

Keira Deer is a writer based in Southern California. She studied creative writing at Chapman University and has been published in Calliope Art & Literary Magazine, Ouroboros Magazine, and Polaris Literary Magazine.

© 2024, Keira Deer