No tourists, please.

Once again, I am the city

in the protagonist’s fantasy

of spying insight in some alleys.

In this state of deuter-agony

 

I bear the weight of your steps in my streets,

the ache of your scent in my sheets,

your careless passing through.

Your photographs of you.

 

You imagine me-

worse, examine me-

My architecture cannot withstand

visions of a savior’s hand,

 

a souvenir machine,

soil unseen, slums scrubbed clean.

It’s not all breakneck neverdreams.

Would you live the complacency?

 

 

The vowels which fit perfectly in my mouth

are embarrassingly unfamiliar in yours.

Liberating.

They undress you in front of me for the first time.

 

 

Dimples in your back.

Tin note in your laugh?

I could live your rainy days

and light that changes too late.

 

If you come, you must stay.

Yet you left in a day.

So go in peace.

No tourists, please.

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