Fifteen

if I could again I would walk at seventeen alone downtown to read the same home street signs and understand this time beyond roads and maps the relevance in words’ intersections names in dutch or anishinaabemowin crossing above waste no more time waiting for a light to shine waste no more time waiting for the light sit in the corner like we always did asking older kids for cigarettes with the SHARP skins and our crust punk friends morning glory packet acid trips and now I know in clear light my own worse failings where here too in a still new place I have and do break where I stare out paralyzed all day at rain just waiting and writing is a referendum on me but shouldn’t I be different now? Having after that self-destructed slowly my twenties away until you came and so life did but I won’t not now— for everyone and you —with eyes closed waste time while victory approaches us slowly too but less slow I will see it coming I will help I hope I will now I see three fires in the river back home where I have only and never belonged my whole life now I see under all three bridges here only water and there is so much I do not know there is so much I do not know now I see basements were sanctuaries still and it was only and more than a song if we all sang if we all now see under all three bridges here only water that there is only one way that it flows that there is only one way that it flows that there is only one way that it flows waste no more time waiting for the light to shine waste no more time waiting for the light waste no more time waste no more time